A South Australian teacher, who blamed his child sex offending on being “bored”, has been sentenced to more than four years in jail.

Clayton John Page pleaded guilty to two charges of communicating to make a child amenable to sexual activity and a charge of possessing child exploitation material.

In August 2023, Page engaged in a conversation on social media with an undercover police officer, who was posing as a female child.

He was arrested in September 2023.

Police then uncovered prior messages, from May 2022, of Page communicating with a child who had told him she was 12 years old.

The charges he admitted relate to both the conversations with an undercover police officer in August 2023 and the message exchange with the child in May 2022.

In sentencing, District Court Judge Nick Alexandrides said the recovered messages included sexualised communications, photographs and an attempt to arrange to meet the child.

Page said he was ‘likely bored’

Judge Alexandrides said Page told forensic psychologist Loraine Lim that he engaged in sexualised online contact with women aged from twenties to forties — and occasionally met up with them in person.

“You described role playing, with you playing the role of the school teacher … and the women playing the role of a less dominant and younger, more sexually-naive female,” Judge Alexandrides said.

“You said that the lines between reality and fantasy were blurred.”

He said Page told Dr Lim that “the conversations were likely to have occurred when you were unwell … or working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic”.

The court heard Page’s “usual routine” was to use social media and messaging platforms to have sexualised conversations with women.

“You told Dr Lim that you now believe that you were seeking pleasure from whatever means you could,” Judge Alexandrides said. 

“You said that normally you would stop if you were told the person was underage, but you believe that you did not this time because you were likely bored.”

The court heard Page had apologised for the offending and told Dr Lim he “accept[ed] full responsibility”.

Judge Alexandrides said he accepted that Page was “sincerely sorry and contrite”.

He jailed Page for four years, one month and 12 days and set a non-parole period of one year and 10 months.

The sentence was backdated to October 2023 when Page surrendered to police. He will be eligible for parole in August 2025.