The officer privately messaged McLellan posing as a girl named, ‘Ellie’ on October 5, last year.
He replied the next day, and during the conversation asked how old she was, and was told 14.
McLellan then told her that he would pay her for “pics n videos wearing tight short clothing $50-$150 maybe up to $250 [sic]”.
“Yes, in clothes tiny clothes mini skirt g string etc,” he wrote to her.
When asked what he would do with the photos, he replied, “I keep them in my folder and use them while I w*** off to you”.
After asking for her bra size, he then told her, “It’s all good I love small petite tits I love small skinny body tight bum I’ll look after you well trust me I will [sic]”, before then talking about his penis.
Police eventually searched his house in December, seizing his cellphone on which “numerous” sexually explicit selfies of teenage girls were found.
Police were unable to identify the girls or their exact ages.
As no photos or videos were exchanged between Arthur William McLellan and the undercover officer, it reduced his culpability, his defence counsel Glen Prentice today submitted in the Hamilton District Court where he was being sentenced. But Judge Gordon Matenga says the chat between the pair could have gone further.
Prentice urged Judge Matenga to adopt a recommended sentence of community work and intensive supervision as advised by probation.
He acknowledged that prison could be a starting point for the offending but the recommendation was more appropriate to acknowledge his client’s previous good character.
Prentice accepted his client thought he was talking to a teen girl but instead “he was in fact talking to a police officer”.
“It was fortunate that it wasn’t anything more than that,” adding there were no photos or videos so nobody was actually harmed by his actions.
“He has acknowledged the issues he has had with pornography ... and why this happened.
He also still had the support of his partner.
Prentice submitted a sentence of home detention could affect his future employment as a foreman as he travelled around various sites in the Waikato.
He also asked that he not be registered on the Child Sex Offender register and be able to keep name suppression.
However, while Judge Matenga found the offending wasn’t as serious to warrant registering on the register, it didn’t reach the high threshold for him to retain name suppression.
He also declined to give him credit for previous good character given what was found on his phone.
On a charge of indecent communication with a young person, McLelland was sentenced to three months’ home detention at his Huntly home, which the judge said struck the right balance of his personal circumstances, including his addiction, and denunciation and deterrence.
Belinda Feek has been a reporter for 19 years, and at the Herald for eight years before joining the Open Justice team in 2022.
