EXCLUSIVE

AN Australian man who paid for girls aged six to nine years old in the Philippines to strip via Skype planned to fly over and pay up to $1500 “to impregnate a virgin” aged as young as seven, a court has heard.

Douglas Thomas Purves, 40, paid a woman in the Philippines to procure girls aged between six and 12 years to strip live, and for videos of girls exposing their private parts.

Images of some of the girls or the videos were sent to him from the Philippines via Skype to his Sydney home early last year.

NSW District Court Judge Mark Williams told Purves’ sentencing hearing on Thursday that the child sex offender’s plans for visiting the Philippines to have child sex were “particularly depraved”.

Purves pleaded guilty to charges including four of causing a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity outside Australia, and five of using a carriage service to solicit child pornography.

Judge Williams said the offender used Skype, Facebook and the online hook-up site Tagged to make contact “with prepubescent girls”.

News.com.au can reveal Purves is friends on Facebook with seemingly very young girls and has a picture of an apparently prepubescent girl cuddling a teddy bear on his page.

Purves, who had visited the Philippines several times and had been married to a Filipina woman, plotted with a local woman whom he had paid to see the naked girls.

Judge Williams said Purves “engaged (the woman) to identify potential children (to facilitate) sex with a virgin who he proposed to impregnate”.

“They discussed prices for (services) including sex with a seven-year-old,” Judge Williams said.

The price in Philippines pesos was 60,000 for a seven-year-old, 30,000 for a nine-year-old and 20,000 for a 12-year-old, which equal $1500, $760 or $510 Australian dollars.

Judge Williams said Purves had offended against at least four children aged between six and 12 years old and that the Philippines was “not a wealthy country”.

Purves offences included attempting to get a nine-year-old strip on camera while he watched via Skype, accessing videos of a naked six-year-old girl and causing 12-year-old girls to expose themselves via Skype.

In his police interview following his arrest, Purves told officers he had been sent images and videos of children and just “kept on going”.

He told police he hadn’t obtained sexual gratification.

The court heard Purves’ parents had separated when he was a young child and he had gone into care and started drinking alcohol while still young.

Judge Williams sentenced Purves to a maximum seven-and-a-half years prison, with a non- parole period expiring in February 2023.

Purves shook hands with his lawyer before being led off down to the cells at Sydney’s Downing Centre Court Complex.