Convicted child sex offender Dale Whiteman, who preyed on girls as young as 11, has had his appeal against his 16-year jail sentence rejected by the Supreme Court.
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Whiteman, a junior rugby league referee from the Illawarra, was convicted in 2021 over offences committed on 22 different children between 2004 and 2019.
According to the court ruling, the youngest was just 11, while the oldest was 17.
Whiteman sexually assaulted several of them, having first befriended the girls' families.
In one instance he began "a legal relationship" with a 13-year-old girl's sister before breaking it off and beginning to groom the girl herself.
"The applicant's modus operandi was to foster relationships with girls around 11 to 15 years of age whom he met through friends or community activities like rugby league and ballroom dancing," the Supreme Court Chief Justice Andrew Bell's ruling stated.
"The relationships were largely pursued online, at least at first. The applicant would send the girls anodyne messages, generally about shared interests, and then he would steer the conversation in a sexual direction."
Whiteman was arrested in 2019 after a friend of a girl he was talking to online told their school principal.
A search warrant issued at the time of arrest found a USB, which was later analysed and found to contain child sexual abuse material.
That led to Whiteman being arrested again in March 2020, and he was held in custody.
Whiteman appealed the sentencing by Judge Andrew Haesler on three grounds; that the judge erred on finding the offending continued after Whiteman's arrest, that the jail term was "manifestly excessive" and Judge Haesler failed "to assess the objective criminality of counts".
The appeals court found an error in the first grounds, but did not consider it warranted any reduction in Whiteman's sentence.
Chief Justice Bell court found Whiteman's evidence to be "self-focused" and his claims of regret were "immature and glib, showing little insight and no true remorse".
"Any 'regret' the applicant feels is not true remorse for the damage he has caused to his victims," the Chief Justice said, "but regret for the circumstances in which he finds himself as a consequence."
There was also a "failure to acknowledge" he was attracted to girls between the ages of 12 and 15.
"I have concluded that his prospects of rehabilitation are quite poor given his prevarication and lack of honesty about his sexual interest in children," Chief Justice Bell stated.
"In my opinion, had the offending not been drawn to the attention of authorities, the applicant would have continued accessing vulnerable children and offending in the manner demonstrated by his persistent, repeated, opportunistic and pernicious conduct over the 15 years preceding his arrest.
"The applicant expended substantial effort, thought and planning on how best to gain the trust of his victims. His offending did not abate and was in fact escalating."
In dismissing Whiteman's appeal, the Chief Justice said had it been up to him, he would have given the sex offender even more time in jail.
Especially for the "sinister, callous and disgraceful" behaviour that saw the 30-year-old Whiteman manipulate a 15-year-old girl by saying he was suicidal and she could "make him feel better".
"Whilst all the applicant's offending against all of his 22 victims is serious, I consider this offending to be particularly serious and would have specified for those offences significantly longer indicative sentences than those indicated by the sentencing judge," he said.
"I would also have structured the sentence to result in a longer non-parole period and longer head sentence for the State offending, resulting in the imposition of a longer overall aggregate sentence of imprisonment."
Read more Illawarra court and crime stories here.
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Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
