Cairns crime: Scott Craig Newton charged with accessing 2069 ‘depraved’ child porn images

A Cairns man who had more than 2,000 ‘depraved’ images of child sexual exploitation material on his Ipad and Iphone has faced court.

A CAIRNS man who had more than 2,000 “depraved” images of child sexual exploitation on his Ipad and Iphone has learned his fate in the Cairns District Court.

Scott Craig Newton, 48, pleaded guilty to one count of using a carriage service to access child abuse material and one count of possessing child exploitation material.

Prosecutor Abi Juniper said the explicit images depicted pre-pubescent males.

A Cairns man has been charged with accessing child exploitation material. Security. Facebook on the iPhone. Mobile phone.

“There were a large number of images depicting the worst kind of material,” Ms Juniper said.

Ms Juniper said Mr Newton had a previous conviction for child abuse material but was not a registered sex offender.

She said a psychologist’s report indicated he had depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour and possibly PTSD and had previous psychiatric hospital admissions.

Defence barrister James Sheridan said he “conceded the depraved nature of the child abuse material, but at least there is some acceptance of guilt, a degree of co-operation during the police search” at Edmonton in September 2020.

He said Mr Newton’s father drank excessively and he may have been exposed to sexual offences as a child.

Mr Sheridan said “it wasn’t 2,000 clicks” as Mr Newton had clicked on a link and it downloaded a large zip file.

“He acted alone, there was no dissemination and no children in the household,” Mr Sheridan said.

He was sentenced to 15 months in prison at the Cairns District Court. Picture: Brendan Radke.

Mr Newton sat slumped with his head bowed as Mr Sheridan told the court how ashamed he was.

Judge Paul Smith said deterrents were needed to protect children.

“There’s real children involved and courts need to deter this terrible trade in child exploitation images,” Judge Smith said.

Judge Smith sentenced Mr Newton to 15 months prison, to be released after five months, on the first count, and three years’ probation on the second count.

“Unfortunately for you, you have a relevant previous conviction selling an objectionable computer game of young children exposing their genitals; it happened a long time ago but is not irrelevant,” Judge Smith said.

He noted Mr Newton was lonely and bored and consuming alcohol and watching “normal” porn which progressed to child porn links.

Mr Newton appeared in court in February but “went into shutdown” and the matter was adjourned.

Originally published as Cairns crime: Scott Craig Newton charged with accessing 2069 ‘depraved’ child porn images