A REPEAT sex offender and former Dandenong cricket umpire has avoided jail after pleading guilty to stalking.

John Kristy Parker, 56, of Dandenong, was convicted on five counts of stalking 12-15-year-old girls on chat-based social networking websites.

Dandenong Magistrates Court was told Parker sent more than 300 explicit emails to his victims in the six months to June 2007.

>> Victims mother speaks out.

The court heard Parker sent one 15-year-old 250 emails and 78 emails and 83 explicit pictures to a 12-year-old.

When one of his victims challenged him saying he didnt sound like the 19-year-old he claimed to be, Parker told her he lost a portion of his tongue in a car accident.

After reading a victim impact statement, Magistrate Pauline Spencer said one of the girls was suffering from depression anxiety, finding it hard to trust men and felt unsafe walking the streets. These matters are very serious. You set yourself up to take advantage of young girls, Ms Spencer said.

(You) showed a wilful blindness to the age of the (victims).

In 2005, Parker was convicted after pleading guilty to 13 counts of stalking and 83 counts of using a mobile phone to menace or harass underage girls.

Despite your priors, I have come to the conclusion that an appropriate sentence be one suspended hanging over your head.

Outside court, police prosecutor Acting Sgt Rick Ellin said that Parker had gained the trust of his victims using an internet profile pretending to be a 19-year-old man named Travis Collins living in Sydney.

A report by the Office of Corrections labelled Parker a moderate to high risk for reoffending.

In passing the sentence, Ms Spencer said Parker posed a risk to the sexual safety of one or more people.

He was given a wholly suspended sentence and placed on the sex offenders register for 15 years.

In February, Leader revealed Parker had been suspended indefinitely from the Dandenong District Cricket Association after it was discovered that he doctored match reports.

Association secretary Ray Nicholls told Leader the DDCA was changing its policy, making it compulsory for all umpires to have a working-with-children check.