A NSW judge has warned a sex predator who preyed on a boy with an intellectual disability for almost five years to say sorry in court.
Gosford District Court Judge David Wilson on Friday told the woman he would not accept she was remorseful for what she had done unless she told him face-to-face in the witness box.
Judge Wilson noted the woman, who police feared was planning with her husband to kidnap other children to satisfy her perverted sexual desires, had told a psychiatrist she was sorry for abusing the young boy but the apology meant little unless repeated in open court.
The judge said a lack of remorse would impact on her future sentence.
The woman, 49, who cannot be named, formally pleaded guilty on Friday to 46 charges, including aggravated sexual intercourse, intentionally sexually touching a child, aggravated sexual assault of a cognitive impaired victim, indecent assault and filming the boy for child abuse material between May 2016 and February 2021 when the boy was aged between 12 and 16.
The woman indicated she would plead guilty to another 21 charges when she returned to court next Wednesday.
Defence barrister Marcus Juhasz, representing the woman's husband, told the court the man was prepared to formally plead guilty to some charges but wanted more time to discuss the prosecution case against him. His matter was adjourned to March 2.
Her husband initially pleaded guilty to all 65 charges in a lower court but claimed he never wanted to admit the offences and had since changed lawyers.
Judge Wilson urged Mr Juhasz to remind his client how guilty pleas received a 25 per cent discount on sentence and the crown case against the husband "seems to me to be overwhelming".
The couple had been arrested in February 2021 after police raided their Central Coast home searching for drugs and weapons, and found a mobile phone with images of the young boy being sexually abused.
The victim later told police he had been forced to perform sexual acts after being invited to their home on false pretences.
"I used to get free pot, free ice, free MDMA off him (the husband) to do that, to f***, to root his wife," the victim told police.
The couple called him ''retard''.
Police also found about 300 ''stories'' written by the couple in the Notes section of an iPhone 11 dating back to 2016 revealing their sexual proclivities.
Police said the stories, some up to 2500 words long, showed how the couple wanted to have sex with young children and the lengths they would go to, to satisfy their sexual needs and wants.
The notes referred to numerous sexual encounters with the victim and another young person.
The woman wrote how she could not wait to have sex with the victim with her husband present.
They both, according to police, had one fantasy of taking in homeless or deserted children and abusing them and also discussed kidnapping children to satisfy their sexual urges and fantasies.
Judge Wilson said while the woman told a psychiatrist she was sorry and knew what she had done was wrong, he would not accept she was remorseful and could be rehabilitated unless she agreed to give evidence.
The judge adjourned her sentence hearing to next Wednesday to give the woman time to decide if she wanted to enter the witness box to express her remorse.
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