![Matthew Collins leaves Queanbeyan court on a previous occasion. Picture by Blake Foden Matthew Collins leaves Queanbeyan court on a previous occasion. Picture by Blake Foden](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/DaHt57RjVSvtvCBUgFzTWj/11c79160-a169-4510-a3f0-ebcf646e3ad7.jpg/r0_57_3640_2103_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A soldier who tried to solicit a nine-year-old girl for sex, by sending a series of "emphatic" messages to an undercover police officer, has avoided spending more time behind bars.
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Matthew Grant Collins, a member of the Australian Defence Force, was sentenced to a three-year intensive correction order on Friday.
In NSW District Court at Sydney's Downing Centre, Judge Peter Whitford SC ordered that Collins serve his sentence of imprisonment in the community rather than in custody.
Collins, a resident of Conder, had spent four-and-a-half months behind bars while on remand before he was granted bail last November.
The 39-year-old previously pleaded guilty to two counts of using a carriage service to make it easier to procure a child for sexual activity.
An agreed statement of facts shows he committed the offences on June 30, 2022, when he initiated a private conversation with the undercover officer on a website called ChatIW.
Collins chose the username "Bored Soldier".
The conversation later moved to WhatsApp and, over the course of an hour, became increasingly depraved.
Most of the messages are too graphic to publish, and Judge Whitford previously stated their sexually explicit nature was "emphatic".
Collins sent the NSW Police officer lewd photographs and a video while, according to his messages, in a changeroom at work.
He told the fictitious mother he was interested in girls aged from "around 9 up to 14".
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The soldier suggested meeting the undercover officer and her made-up daughter, who was said to be nine, at a motel in Canberra for a sexual encounter involving all three people.
"Oh I want it for real!!!" he wrote.
Collins was arrested at work about a week later and extradited from the ACT to NSW.
Collins' sentence is set to expire on July 20, 2026.
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