A MAN working in Kerang was increasingly “bored, lonely and unhappy” in the township when he began contacting and grooming underage girls on Instagram, a court has heard.

Matthew Hickey, 51, was sentenced to term of imprisonment in the Victorian County Court, sitting in Bendigo, on May 21.

The father-of-two, who travelled back to his family in Melbourne on weekends, pleaded guilty to two cha...