https://thenightly.com.au/australia/oli ... c-21502480
An award-winning author who had access to children through school book events has been placed behind bars after grooming three teen victims online.
Oliver Phommavanh, 42, was once respected for children’s fiction works such as Thai-riffic!, What About Thao? and The Other Christy.
But the Thai-Australian writer was escorted to jail by NSW sheriffs on Monday after pleading guilty to multiple child sexual offences.
“He has had a significant fall from grace,” his barrister Kieran Ginges told a sentence hearing at Sydney’s Parramatta District Court.
“He will never be a public figure again, he will always be a public pariah.”
Phommavanh groomed three young girls between 2020 and 2024, using compliments as persuasion towards sexual activity.
He was arrested at a home in the Sydney suburb of West Guildford shortly after trying to groom an undercover police officer posing as a teen online.
Before being taken away by sheriffs, the writer was denied a last chance to hug his wife, who was in court on Monday along with his sister and members from his church.
