A New South Wales man has been extradited to Queensland on dozens of child exploitation charges over the alleged grooming of a young girl, after a "vigilant father" discovered countless messages on his daughter's phone.
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Police will allege the NSW man used a carriage service to engage with and groom a 13-year-old Mackay girl over a four-month period from December last year.
Detectives extradited the 23-year-old man from Sydney on Monday.
He will appear in Mackay Magistrates Court on Tuesday charged with 46 offences including 28 counts of using a carriage service to cause child pornography material to be transmitted to self.
Detective Inspector Brendan Smith said the alleged offending was discovered by the girl's father when the family noticed their internet data usage had gone up significantly, leading to him discovering more than 30,000 exchanges between his daughter and the alleged offender.
"[The man] met her on a gaming site, an app that you can use on your mobile phone," Inspector Smith said.
"It moved over to texting so they could send messages and use FaceTime, so they could do video chats as well."
He said the alleged charges against the man carried penalties of between 25 years to life imprisonment if convicted.
Inspector Smith urged parents to start conversations with their children about cyber safety and to be aware of who their children were talking to.
“The Queensland Police Service and the Commonwealth Government eSafety Commissioner have excellent online resources for parent use regarding this issue,” Detective Inspector Smith said.
“As seen by today’s efforts, we take offences against children extremely seriously and offenders are sadly mistaken if they believe they can hide behind jurisdictional borders.
“Child safety is our highest priority.”
