Jail term for speedway driver after grooming and raping teenager

A prominent West Australian speedway driver has been sentenced to four years and three months behind bars after grooming and raping a teenage girl. 

Dustin Gary Higgs was found guilty of four counts of sexually penetrating a child over 13 and under 16 during a trial at the Albany District Court on August 3.

During the trial, the court heard how Higgs developed a friendship with a 15-year-old in the summer of early 2022 over their shared love of speedway. 

Higgs was found guilty of three charges but acquitted of five others.

The jury rejected the defence's claim that the relationship had only turned sexual after the girl's 16th birthday.

During the sentencing this morning, District Court Judge Gary Massey said vulnerable children must be protected from those who prey on them.

"You knew this offending was wrong and did it anyway," he told Higgs. 

The ruling also includes a permanent violence restraining order which prevents Higgs from having any contact with the victim, or coming within 50 metres of her place of work or education. 

Snapchat to speedway

During Judge Massey's sentencing, he told the court that Higgs came to know of the victim through the speedway community when he was in his early 30s, and the victim was in her mid-teens.

The pair began their contact through social media platform Snapchat and later in person through a speedway event.

Higgs sent her multiple messages complimenting her body, an act the judge described as "grooming".

"She lacked the maturity to make properly informed decisions about sexual matters," he said.  

The court found the relationship turned sexual in January 2022, when Higgs booked a room at Albany's Hilton Hotel. 

While the defence claimed nothing sexual happened at the hotel, and the pair were staying to visit a nearby national park the next day, the court found otherwise. 

"You went to the hotel room in order to have sex with her," the judge told Higgs. 

"There is no other plausible explanation to share a hotel room with a 15-year-old girl." 

Higgs's defence lawyer, Johnson Kitto, conceded the situation was less than ideal in last week's hearing. 

"It is the elephant in the room that defence counsel can't get around,"

he said.

Further offending occurred the following month at the Dog Rock Motel. 

Need for general deterrence 

Mr Kitto asked for a suspended sentence for Higgs due to his need for immunotherapy treatment for a rare kidney disorder. 

But Corrective Services Assistant Commissioner Alan Watkins assured the court Higgs would be catered for in prison, despite Mr Kitto saying the WA prison system could not accommodate his client's treatment needs. 

The judge said a term of imprisonment answers a "significant need for general deterrence". 

"I am positively satisfied the terms of imprisonment I have imposed should not be suspended," he said. 

"You require lifelong immunotherapy to prevent graft rejection ... Casuarina Prison would be the most appropriate (to aid in medical requirements). 

"(The victim) is now able, with the benefit of the passage of time, to recognise the harm against her." 

Higgs will be eligible for parole after serving two years and three months.