Rocky Camp man Peter Hyde handed home detention sentence for possessing and sharing child exploitation material

An elderly man with a sick wife had thousands of vile child abuse files and made false online identities to send sexualised messages about his fake niece.

An 81-year-old man with an “exemplary teaching history” has narrowly avoided serving his remaining years in jail after being caught with thousands of vile child exploitation files.

Peter Lionel Hyde will be able to continue caring for his dementia suffering wife, after he blamed “aggressive” advertising on him transitioning to his sinister online habit.

The Adelaide District Court on Friday heard police attended Hyde’s house in December, 2017 and seized his devices.

Over 2700 child exploitation images and videos were found on Hyde’s devices, with the majority being children under 14 years.

337 files were in category four.

Peter Lionel Hyde was sentenced in the Adelaide District Court. Picture: Arj Ganesan

Category four of the Oliver scale – which forms the basis on which child exploitation images and videos are graded – involves penetrative sexual activity between children only or adults and children.

The court heard Hyde, who originally denied his online identity, said he made the insidious transition to child exploitation material due to “aggressive” marketing, such as pop-ups.

The court heard Hyde spread child exploitation material online through “detailed” Twitter messages.

“You assumed false identities and spoke about sexually offending against children – that included offending against an imaginary niece of yours,” Judge Gordon Barrett said during sentencing.

Hyde, of Rocky Camp near Millicent, had previously pleaded guilty to multiple counts of possessing child exploitation material and one count of disseminating child exploitation material in the Mount Gambier Magistrates Court.

Peter Hyde outside court. Picture: Arj Ganesan

The court heard Hyde had worked as a teacher in Canada for 40 years.

The father-of-two then migrated to Australia with his second wife after he had retired from teaching.

“You had what appears to be an exemplary teaching history, there is no history of inappropriate sexual behaviour towards children or students,” Judge Barrett said.

Judge Barrett said it wasn’t clear why Hyde developed an interest in child exploitation material but it could be due to the “unregulated access” online.

“There is no doubt that when you were accessing the exploitation material and engaging in the sexualised conversations with other people, you were sexually aroused by what you were experiencing,” he said.

The court heard Hyde has multiple health problems and his wife is heavily reliant on him as she suffers from dementia.

Judge Barrett sentenced Hyde to two years jail, with a non-parole period of 18 months.

He ordered the sentence be served on home detention, due to Hyde’s low risk of reoffending.