Adam Stewart showed 'casual disregard' for child sex offender register requirements

Adam Vaughan Stewart, 37, was sentenced to a total of 20 months in jail on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to 10 charges, which included two failures to adhere to his obligations as a registered child sex offender.

Stewart had already served four months in custody on remand, and magistrate Louise Taylor imposed an intensive correction order for the rest of the term.

Documents tendered to the ACT Magistrates Court show Stewart, an unemployed Richardson resident, was convicted in 2007 of a rape charge.

The ACT Supreme Court sentenced him to five years in jail, with a non-parole period of three years, after he and co-offender Luke Maddison drove a high school student to an isolated area and raped her as she cried in June 2005.

Having been convicted of sexual intercourse without consent, Stewart became a registrable sex offender with a mandatory reporting period of 15 years.

Ms Taylor said the 37-year-old breached his reporting conditions in December 2020 by failing to report to Belconnen Police Station before a trip to Gosford, and neglecting to provide the required details of his interstate travel.

During the month in question, the child sex offender registry team spoke to Stewart on the phone one afternoon after several failed attempts to reach him.

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He scheduled an appointment, and he said he planned to leave the territory for NSW in the next day or so.

But Stewart did not attend the appointment and investigations later revealed he was already interstate, having been captured in the passenger seat of his partner's vehicle as it drove through Sydney the day before the phone call.

Phone records indicate he did not return to the ACT until January 2021.

He did not advise the registry team of his return, nor did he complete a declaration form ACT Health required of anyone coming back from interstate COVID-19 hotspots at that time.

Also during January 2021, Stewart failed to make an appointment for an annual interview registered child sex offenders must attend.

He left a voicemail the following month to say he could attend because he had "finished in the COVID lockdown thingy", despite having never mentioned anything of the sort to registry staff before.

When staff tried to return his call, they could not get in touch with him.

The other offences Ms Taylor had to sentence Stewart for on Tuesday included aggravated dangerous driving, following a short police pursuit in August 2020.

Among other things, there was also a minor theft charge laid after Stewart stole $147.50 worth of items from a Tuggeranong Kmart store in July 2020.

While Stewart was assessed as unsuitable for an intensive correction order, Ms Taylor said she believed he would benefit from one because it would involve close supervision and "swift consequences" in the event of any breaches.

The magistrate said Stewart had a lengthy history of offending in the ACT, NSW and Victoria, and nothing the criminal justice system had done in the past had prompted the 37-year-old to change his ways.

She was encouraged, however, by there being no evidence he had committed a crime since February 2021, saying an intensive correction order would test his self-expressed "yearning to be free of crime" for the sake of his six children.

In addition to the jail term, the rest of which will now be served in the community, Ms Taylor fined Stewart $250 and disqualified him from driving for three years.

She warned Stewart he would be "an absolute idiot" to drive while disqualified, urging him to instead rely on buses, the light rail or "two feet and a heartbeat".