THE son of a former Encourage Church Romsey pastor, Joshua Emonson has been jailed for 12 months after he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl in his car in February last year.
Avoiding a potentially lengthy jail time, the judge ruled that there were “exceptional circumstances,” slashing his time to 12 months.
Judge Kellie Blair said his actions were impulsive rather than predatory and if he had taken the case to trial, he could have received two years and eight months.
Judge Blair said Mr Emonson was now a young man who was remorseful, committed to change, and received positive character references.
Mr Emonson told the courtroom on Wednesday June 17 that he “couldn’t stop himself” due to an adult porn addiction sustained in his teenage years.
The relationship between Mr Emonson and the victim started on a social media platform where he was asking the teen “questions of sexual nature.”
Mr Emonson’s profile on the app listed his age as 18 years old when he was asking her questions about her ‘body count’ to which she replied ‘zero’.
The victim told Mr Emonson that she was 13 and he was okay with that, “as long as she didn’t tell anyone,” proceeding to then tell her that he was 18.
After saying that he “would be happy to be her first” and “would be careful with her”, he arranged a meetup, asking her to go to the Sunbury Railway Station after attending a family funeral.
He then sexually assaulted the 13-year-old girl in the back of his sports car for roughly 20 minutes at a multi-level car park at Sunbury Station and then left her there at roughly 9pm.
The 24-year-old is a former Encourage youth leader and worked at KidZone, the childcare centre run by the Romsey Encourage Church, around the time the offence occurred.
Following the arrests made in March last year, the church was investigated by the state’s education department and a church peak body after being made aware of comments by certain church insiders who accused its board of hiding information about the sexual assault committed.
Some members of the church and family members of Mr Emonson were in court and were heckled by multiple people within the gallery.
After the completion of his 12-month sentence, he will be required to complete 200 hours of community work and will be a registered sex offender for 15 years.
Mr Emonson is facing multiple other charges of grooming and child sex crimes in a separate case which allegedly occurred prior to Febuary. which he is expected to contest, the court heard.