Nathan Sertori, who was charged with planning to sexually abuse children overseas, has avoided jail for his crimes but with the condition he not access the internet until his sentence runs out.
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Sertori, 36, was sentenced in the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday to two years and two months imprisonment, to be served under an intensive corrections order.
The order means he will do his time in the community with strict conditions, including that he not use the internet and continue rehabilitation with psychologists.
A breach of the conditions could see Sertori arrested and brought before the Sentence Administration Board, which has the power to jail him for a short period or the rest of his sentence.
In sentencing Sertori, Justice John Burns said he was not persuaded the man had intended to carry out the plans to abuse children.
In making that conclusion, the judge observed the overseas trip was planned before the sexually explicit conversations began, and that the conversations stopped weeks before the trip.
The judge pointed to the man's acceptance of responsibility for his crimes, his ongoing employment, family support and rehabilitation with psychologists in deciding the sentence to be imposed.
Federal police arrested Sertori at Sydney Airport and stopped him boarding an international flight after a tip-off from INTERPOL sparked an investigation from Australian child protection officers in June 2016.
Sertori planned to fight the charges but later pleaded guilty to planning to have sex with a child outside Australia and transmitting child pornography.
The case is believed to be the first time the Commonwealth offence of planning to abuse a child overseas has been prosecuted in the ACT.
Court documents said Sertori had online conversations, which began on an incest website, with an undercover British police officer posing as a woman named "Sadie" about plans to meet in London and sexually abuse her three children in late July.
In a series of explicit exchanges, he spoke of plans to have sex with the woman and abuse her two daughters, aged 12 and 14, and her son, aged 10.
Police who investigated the man's online profile, under the username of "Dtyungman", discovered he also belonged to teen sex and child rape online discussion boards.
An IP address was used to track the online profile to Sertori's family home in Holt. Police matched his online profile description with images on social media and his passport photograph.
He was arrested before leaving Australia after Border Force officials alerted police Sertori had flown out of Canberra and was booked on a flight with his mother from Sydney to Dubai on July 12.
In a police interview, Sertori admitted he'd contacted a woman online about engaging in sexual activities with her two underage daughters and said she'd offered her son for him to rape.
But he told police he asked the woman about having sex with her children "purely as a fantasy" and had no intention of meeting up with them in London. He said he also planned to travel to Paris and Copenhagen with his mother.
Sertori's sentence expires on November 27, 2019.
With Megan Gorrey
