Brendon Walkingshaw guilty of indecent communication, possessing child abuse material
A Norlane sex offender thought he was messaging a 14-year-old, but he’d sent an explicit image of himself to a police officer.
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A registered sex offender was caught with child abuse material after sending an explicit photo of himself to a police officer posing as an underage girl, a court has heard.
Brendon Walkingshaw, 27, appeared in the Melbourne County Court on Monday for sentencing, having pleaded guilty to charges including multiple failures in his reporting obligations, using a carriage service to transmit an indecent communication to a child, possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and committing an indictable offence while on bail.
In 2017, Walkingshaw, of Norlane, pleaded guilty to committing indecent acts with a child under the age of 16, after sexually touching a girl under the age of 10 in October 2016 and was placed on the sex offenders register for eight years.
Walkingshaw will now have to register as sex offender for life, but won’t spend any time behind bars due to meeting the threshold for exceptional circumstances.
Walkingshaw has an intellectual disability and an IQ of 68, the court heard.
The court heard that in November 2021, police became aware that Walkingshaw was using Instagram.
A police officer began talking to him pretending to be a 14-year-old girl named Indiana living on the Mornington Peninsula.
On December 13, Walkingshaw sent a shirtless picture of himself before telling Indiana he couldn’t say what he was “doing” as she was 14 and it was “an adult thing a man does in bed”.
He asked if she had ever had a boyfriend or seen a penis before and later sent a photo of his penis.
Police raided Walkingshaw’s home on December 21, 2021, seizing a mobile phone.
On the phone police found 47 files of child sexual abuse material, including seven category one images, one of which was an image of a child “no older than five” being abused, and 40 category two images.
The court also heard that between September 10, 2020 and April 29, 2021, Walkingshaw failed to report a Facebook account and two Snapchat accounts.
On April 5, 2021, he also walked along Bellerine St in Geelong in the company of four others, including an underage girl. He did not report the child contact to the police.
Following his arrest, he told police he had created the accounts as he believed his online accounts “had been hacked by an ex-girlfriend”.
In January 2022, Walkingshaw was slapped with an order prohibiting him from using the internet, but was found to have breached it in September that year.
Judge Martine Marich said Walkingshaw’s moral culpability was lessened by his cognitive deficiencies and limited intellectual functioning.
She said Walkingshaw was still relatively young, and was “still capable of growing out of (his) temptation to offend”.
The court heard Walkingshaw had a “very difficult” and abusive childhood.
Judge Marich placed Walkingshaw on an 18-month Recognisance Release Order (RRO), along with a community corrections order (CCO) of the same duration.
He was previously fined $400 in January 2020 after failing in his reporting obligations.
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Originally published as Brendon Walkingshaw guilty of indecent communication, possessing child abuse material
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