In one of the first legal cases in Australia involving the social phenomenon of ‘sexting’, a Sydney pool cleaner appeared in court facing multiple harassment charges after sending explicit text messages, photographs and videos to eight Sydney women. Having initially been sentenced to at least 3 years imprisonment by a magistrate, the District Court has shaved 16 months off this sentence. Peter Lewis Sheather, 41, appeared in Downing Centre Local Court after being charged with nine counts of using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend. The offence can lead to a maximum penalty of 3 years imprisonment. At trial, it was revealed that the victims were customers of two pool maintenance firms, where Mr Sheather worked as a pool cleaner. …show more content…
Mr Sheather was unknown to each woman when the messages were sent. When a victim warned Mr Sheather that she would report him to the police, he replied, “You don’t even know who it is”. The majority of the offences originated from Bellevue Hill and Paddington between March and April 2014. NSW Police raided Mr Sheather’s Cammeray residence on April 24 and seized mobile phones, laptops and documents as evidence. He was arrested that day and granted bail. In the initial trial, Magistrate Roger Prowse described Mr Sheather as depraved. “If you had to look up the word depraved, you would find an entry: Peter Sheather”, the magistrate stated. Furthermore, Mr Prowse noted that Sheather had a “hideous” record of offending and had little prospect of rehabilitation. Mr Sheather had previously been jailed for 18 months after pleading guilty to almost 100 counts of menacing women, only approximately seven months after he had served a jail term for similar offences in 2001. As a result, Mr Prowse criticised Mr Sheather heavily, describing him as a person who deserved nothing less than a jail sentence for harassing his