Former Ainslie Football Club, Magpies Juniors coach Stephen Porter sexually abused boy at least 35 times

Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson said on Tuesday that she had "grave reservations" about Stephen James Porter's evidence as she ruled against him in an ACT Supreme Court disputed facts hearing and accepted the account of a "truthful and honest" victim.

Porter, 51, is currently behind bars on remand as he awaits sentencing for four child sex offences he has admitted committing between 2009 and his arrest in 2020.

The Macgregor man pleaded guilty last year, admitting he had used his first victim - a boy he had coached at the Magpies Juniors club in Belconnen - for the production of child exploitation material over a period of nearly three years.

He later sexually abused a young Ainslie Football Club player between 2015 and 2018, having struck up a private coaching arrangement with that boy's parents.

When this child reported Porter to police in 2020, investigators discovered the man was in the process of grooming yet another boy he was coaching at the Ainslie club.

A raid on Porter's home also uncovered more than 1500 videos and images depicting the sexual exploitation of children. The fourth and final charge was of possessing this material.

While the disgraced coach admitted his guilt, he and the prosecution disagreed about the details of his most serious crime.

This was an offence of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with the second of his victims.

Justice Loukas-Karlsson was therefore required to conduct a disputed facts hearing in order to determine whether there had been 35 to 45 occasions of sexual abuse involving this victim, as the boy alleged, or no more than 15 instances, as Porter claimed.

The judge also had to rule on a dispute about the number of times a particularly graphic type of sexual activity occurred.

Justice Loukas-Karlsson said in a judgment on Tuesday afternoon that the second victim had presented as an honest witness, "who did his best to recall undoubtedly traumatic events from his childhood".

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"I found the complainant to be an impressive witness," she said. "His evidence was compelling."

On the other hand, the judge found Porter's evidence represented an attempt to minimise the number of opportunities he had to sexually abuse the victim.

"The impression that I gained from analysing his evidence ... is that the offender is deceiving himself as to what occurred and attempting in that way to minimise his own actions," Justice Loukas-Karlsson said.

"It should be noted that there is complete inconsistency between what the offender initially told police and his evidence before me in court."

Concluding that she did not believe there was any reasonable possibility Porter's evidence was correct, Justice Loukas-Karlsson rejected it.

She said she was satisfied there had been 35 to 45 occasions of sexual activity involving the second victim, and proposed to sentence Porter on the basis the number had been at the lower end of that range.

The judge also accepted the boy's account of how many times the particularly graphic sexual act had taken place.

She will sentence Porter, whose bail was revoked in December, at a later date.

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