A Hunter man who used a computer program to get around an Interpol warning so he could access a website to download almost 200 images and videos of child abuse material over a five-month period has been given a three-year jail term.
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The 30-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced in Newcastle District Court on Tuesday afternoon after previously pleading guilty to one count each of using a child under the age of 14 years old for the production of child abuse material, using a carriage service for child abuse material and possessing child abuse material accessed using a carriage service.
Police were alerted to the man by tech giant Google, which informed investigators his Google Drive had been forcibly closed after the company detected child abuse material on his account.
After a search of his home in April, 2020, investigators found 194 images and videos depicting child abuse of children aged between toddlers and pre-teens. They also found two photos taken in 2013 showing one of the man's relatives - aged three years old at the time - with his pants pulled down.
During sentencing on Tuesday, Judge Tim Gartelmann, SC, said the man's prospects of rehabilitation were not favourable, but not hopeless.
He referred to the opinion of a psychiatrist, who found the man had an above-average risk of re-offending, but that he had shown genuine remorse.
Judge Gartelmann said the man had mental conditions which made him present as "psychologically and socially compromised", which lowered his moral culpability - but that nothing other than a full-time jail term was appropriate in this case.
According to an agreed statement of facts tendered to the court last week, the man downloaded a VPN - a program that can disguise a user online - in order to access a website after seeing a warning from international police agency Interpol saying the site contained child abuse material.
He admitted to police after his arrest that he accessed the website several times a week in the five months up to April, 2020 - when he was charged.
The court heard that the man acknowledged that creating child abuse material was a crime, but claimed he did not know it was a criminal offence to access those sorts of images and videos.
Judge Gartelmann said in court on Tuesday he could not accept that claim, given the Interpol warning and the man's effort to get around it.
And while the man had said he was "disgusted" but "curious" about the horrific material, Judge Gartelmann said there was no reasonable inference other than he created the two images - and accessed 192 other pictures and videos - for his own sexual gratification.
The maximum three-year jail term was back-dated to the time of his arrest - the man has been in custody since then.
He will be first eligible for conditional release on April 21, 2022, when he can apply to serve the remainder of his sentence on a bond.
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