Australian wine scientist Simon Dillon has appeared in court on child sex charges.
A scientist at the Australian Wine Research Institute in Adelaide, Dillon has been accused of using the internet to attempt to groom children under the age of five for sex.
The 51-year-old was refused bail in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
Dillon was arrested by detectives from South Australia’s Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team at his home on Monday, according to a report in The Advertiser.
“On Tuesday, SA Police prosecutors urged the court to refuse Mr Dillon’s application for bail, warning they were still gathering evidence from his online cloud accounts,” the report says.
“They said that evidence would be crucial to their case, which arose from a series of online communications that began on January 17 this year.
“He has been speaking online with a covert police officer who he believed to be a 51-year-old woman with care of a five-year-old granddaughter.”
The report in The Advertiser says Mr Dillon has yet to plead to one count each of disseminating child exploitation material and communicating to make a child amenable to sex.
His LinkedIn profile says he was most recently the culture collection manager at the AWRI.
Dillon’s counsel said his client had “no criminal history whatsoever”.
He has been remanded in custody until March.
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