Cairns District Court: Young woman guilty of child-exploitation charges avoids prison in ‘unusual case’

A young Cairns woman has avoided prison time despite pleading guilty to making and possessing child-exploitation material after a judge found exceptional circumstances in her case.

The Cairns Court House building on Sheridan Street. Picture: Brendan Radke

A young Cairns woman has avoided prison time despite pleading guilty to making and possessing child-exploitation material after a judge found exceptional circumstances in her case.

The woman, now 20, pleaded guilty in Cairns District Court on Tuesday to one charge each of making and possessing child-exploitation material stemming from her “misguided” attempts to gather evidence that her younger cousin was being exploited online.

The court heard the offending occurred in 2023 when the woman, then 18, discovered concerning images on her phone after her 15-year-old cousin had used the device and remained logged into Facebook.

Defence counsel Kelly Goodwin told the court the woman’s actions were motivated by a “misguided desire to protect her family member, not sexual gratification or financial gain”.

“She has scrolled through that and seen images and taken screenshots of these images and this is how the material came to be made,” Mr Goodwin said.

“It was her idea to confront the people involved. It was born out of protection for a family member.”

The offending involved 11 images and six videos of the woman’s 15-year-old cousin found on her phone, which she had taken screenshots of and recorded.

Crown prosecutor Emily Thambyah described the offending as “a significant breach of trust” but acknowledged it was an “unusual case”.

“It is not one in which the woman was motivated by sexual gratification, as is often the case in comparable authorities,” Ms Thambyah said.

Mr Goodwin told the court the woman had an intellectual disability and tendered a psychological report which assessed her as a low risk of reoffending.

Under Queensland legislation, charges of making and possessing child-exploitation material must attract a prison sentence unless exceptional circumstances can be proven.

Judge Ken Barlow KC found such exceptional circumstances existed, citing the woman’s age, lack of previous history and the relatively low level of offending.

“It appears she [the 15-year-old] had been persuaded into sending these terrible images to whoever was at the other end of the conversation and when you saw them you recorded them,” he said.

“It is not clear to me why you kept them.”

Rather than imposing a custodial sentence, Judge Barlow placed the woman on probation for two years.

Originally published as Cairns District Court: Young woman guilty of child-exploitation charges avoids prison in ‘unusual case’