Harry Sing Wan Lagdon: Teacher who sexually abused teen in classroom, groomed kids online cops hefty jail term

A teacher who sexually abused a student on school grounds, at his home and in a car then targeted even younger children online has been jailed for more than seven years. Harry Sing Wan Lagdon was 24 and working in regional WA when he started grooming a 15-year-old pupil, sending her texts outside of school hours and giving her jewellery on her birthday. And when she didn’t send him explicit photographs of himself as he’d asked, he sent her some of himself, the District Court was told on Thursday. The offending then escalated dramatically, with Lagdon performing sexual acts on the girl in the cupboard of his classroom and in a shed on the school grounds. He even touched her inner thigh in the classroom when another student was there. Lagdon then picked her up from the school oval on a weekend and brought her to his home, using some force to make her perform an act on him before sexually penetrating her several times. After doing it in his car, the now 29-year-old sent her a vile text saying he enjoyed “the thought of you walking home to your parents knowing” what he had just done to her. Lagdon did obscene things on video calls to the victim and also sent her more than 300 such photos and videos of himself, adding captions to some including calling himself a “pedo” and the victim a “sl..”. Moving to Perth where he continued teaching, he then started targeting three girls online — the youngest aged just 12 — with more revolting remarks and requests. He pretended he was a teenage boy, which was central to gaining their trust, Judge Matthew Curwood said. When a girl was hesitant to send explicit images of herself, Lagdon “employed emotional manipulation”, saying: “It means we shouldn’t be together”. Lagdon was arrested the day after his former student complained to police, with his electronic devices exposing the subsequent online abuse. Judge Curwood described Lagdon’s crimes against the pupil as persistent, brazen and exploitative of their “inherent power imbalance”. The conduct was “obsessive”, “persistent” and involved planning, the judge said, and had a profoundly damaging effect on the now-adult victim. The impact of Lagdon’s predatory and “sustained campaign” with the online victims would likely also be deep and long-lasting, Judge Curwood said. Defence counsel Mark Gunning said his client had been “a bit immature” but “slowly come to terms with what he has done . . . and accepted that it was quite wrong”. Lagdon was sentenced to seven years and nine months in jail, with parole eligibility after serving five years and nine months. He was banned from having any contact with his former student for life. 1800 RESPECT