A former Queensland child protection officer has been sentenced to two years in jail for grooming a teenage girl.
Matthew Paul Hockley met the 15-year-old victim while he was investigating nude photos of her that were allegedly being passed around at her school.
He struck up a conversation with the girl over Snapchat and the pair exchanged more than 1,000 messages over a three week period.
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Hockley pleaded not guilty and defended the messages he sent to the girl, but also described them as 'highly inappropriate', 'ill-timed' and 'an overshare'.
The court heard he referred to the 15-year-old as 'cute' and 'beautiful' and mentioned how girls would be sexually involved with 'older men', according to the ABC.
Still, he told the jury he was never speaking to the girl with the intention of engaging in sex with her.
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"My role is to protect children, not to harm them," he said.
Last week, he was found guilty of one count of grooming a child under 16 with intent to procure engagement in a sexual act and one count of using the internet to procure a child under 16.
The jury acquitted him on one count of grooming a child under 16 with intent to expose to indecent matter.
Judge Bernard Porter said of the offences: "The sexualised messages were sprinkled irregularly through ordinary communications. The language used was at the less serious end.
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"The mere fact that a person who is a sworn officer would engage in this conduct is abhorrent.
"It is made worse by the fact that he was a sworn officer working in child protecting.
"Finally, it is made even worse by the fact that he betrayed his oath by grooming a young woman who he had come into contact with while investigating offending by and against her."
Hockley was sentenced to two years behind bars but he will be eligible for parole in eight months.
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