Fabian Meharry
By Jane Lee, The Age, Victoria
A judge has described a BMX rider who sexually abused more
than 20 young girls as a "monster of sexual depravity", whose crimes
demonstrated the dangers of social media.
Fabian
Meharry, 28, befriended 22 girls on social media websites before asking
them to send him sexual photos of themselves.
He blackmailed the girls, aged between 11 to 17 years, into
performing degrading and painful sexual acts on themselves online, secretly
recording videos of them which he used to continue blackmailing them.
County
Court Judge Liz Gaynor sentenced Meharry on Wednesday to 12 years'
prison with a non-parole period of 10 years for more than 60 child sexual abuse
crimes including producing child pornography, sexual penetration of a child
under 16 and grooming children using a carriage service.
"Yours was prolonged, classically predatory, depraved,
cruel and remorseless behaviour, which demonstrated with appalling clarity the
dangers inherent in social media [that have required] the formulation of
punitive legislation designed to protect, as far as it can, the young and
vulnerable from persons such as yourself," Judge Gaynor said.
"It
would not be unfair to classify you as a monster of depravity."
When his victims refused to perform sexual acts according
to his instructions via webcam or Skype, he would threaten to publish the
photos online or to send them directly to their families.
He
also threatened to take his own life, filming himself holding a
knife to his own throat.
Conversations where demands were made sometimes went from 30
minutes to three hours, and different victims were offended against for a
day, weeks or months, with one abused for four years.
He
also met some of his victims in person, when his crimes escalated
into direct sexual abuse and in one case resulted in a miscarriage.
One girl was blackmailed into performing acts of bestiality and incest.
Meharry
– who is well-known in the Echuca BMX scene – told his victims about his
internet business, which sold grinding wax for bikes and skateboards
as a way to attract them to him, the court heard.
"It
was as if you saw the internet as providing you with a vast array of vulnerable
teenagers whom you could prey upon, exploit and terrorise, as the whim took
you," Judge Gaynor said.
She
said the sexual acts forced on the victims were often their first sexual
experience.
They
feared the world, had suffered difficulties in their families, felt guilty and
blamed themselves.
Judge
Gaynor said Meharry deliberately targeted young girls because they were able to
be exploited to do what he wanted.
Older,
more experienced women would be less likely to submit to his demands or believe
his comments that he could not be caught and that they themselves had would be
in trouble if they reported him to police.
His
victims were from all over Australia. He knew how old most of them
were. One was in court for the sentence and another appeared via video
link.
The
judge rejected Meharry's insistence he was now disgusted and shocked by his own
crimes, saying he had had "ample opportunity" to stop before police
ended his "nine-year reign of trauma".
He
continued his crimes even after a police raid on his home in 2015, and another
judge in 2008 warning him against sex with under-age girls, when he was
sentenced for a sexual relationship with a younger child.
Judge
Gaynor said his difficult family background and psychiatric reports did not
explain his crimes.
She said he had
"poor" prospects for rehabilitation.
