Court frees Australian caretaker who had sex with teenager

MELBOURNE - An Australian court Friday freed a 22-year-old man after convicting him of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl in a care facility two years ago.

County Court judge Ross Howie said Victoria Giddens was an immature and untrained university student at the time of his offence.

Giddens had pleaded guilty and was convicted of four charges of sexual penetration of a 16-year-old girl between August and November 2008 in a Ballarat care facility, which had been given custody of the girl by the Department of Human Services, The Age reported.

The judge, however, sentenced Giddens to serve 150 hours of community work over the next year.

“What you did was plainly wrong. It was not an isolated act of wrong doing,” Judge Howie told Giddens.

“What made it particularly wrong… was it occurred when you had a clear responsibility to care for a child who had been entrusted to your care and you betrayed that trust.”

The judge said: “It was the foolish behaviour of an immature and inexperienced and untrained young person who wrongly and unwisely became involved in a brief, intense emotional relationship.”