An African refugee who once killed a cyclist will spent just 15 months behind bars for sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl in Canberra after grooming her on a dating app.
Shegu Bobb, 27, was found guilty by an ACT Supreme Court jury earlier this year of seven charges including committing an act of indecency on a person under 16, procuring a child for sex, and transmitting child abuse material, but was acquitted of rape and indecent assault.
On Monday Bobb, who came to Australia from Sierra Leone as a child and in 2019 fatally struck a British cyclist while driving to work but avoided being charged, was sentenced by Justice Belinda Baker to three years and one month in jail, to be suspended after 15 months, Region Canberra reported.
During the trial Bobb argued that he believed his victim was much older because she set her age to 19 on Badoo, an 18+ dating app, but Justice Baker found the girl “appeared to be even younger than her actual age”, and the court heard she was 130cm tall and weighed less than 30kg.
Bobb groomed the girl for sex after meeting her on the app in 2020, sending her pictures of his genitals, and eventually assaulted her in the back of his car after arranging to meet up to have sex.
The court heard the girl was too scared to talk to Bobb during the encounter, messaging him through the app instead and telling him “I’m scared” and “I can’t do this”, The Canberra Times reported.
Justice Baker told the court: “The victim continued to protest that she was scared, the offender continued to pressure the victim to have sexual intercourse with him.”
She also found that Bobb knew the girl was under 16 as he commented on their age gap, and called his crimes “carefully planned” and not opportunistic.
But she noted Bobb had suffered childhood trauma, had PTSD symptoms and depression at the time of the offending, was remorseful, and had good prospects for rehabilitation.
During a hearing last month the victim’s mother told the court the family had been forced to move away from Canberra due to the impact of Bobb’s crimes, and that every family member had been deeply affected.
“We felt powerless to protect our children in a place that now held so much pain,” she said in a victim impact statement.
“The emotional energy that once went into joyful moments and shared experiences is now spent managing crises, attending therapy and trying to hold ourselves together.”
Header image: Shegg Bobb leaving court during his jury trial (Region Canberra).
