Kai David Clarke in court for child exploitation

A Bundaberg man has admitted to posing as a young child on social media after a tip-off to the Australian Federal Police led to a search of his home.

A Bundaberg court has heard how a young man had child exploitation material on his Xbox and phone and had even uploaded images to Twitter.

Kai David Clarke, 20, pleaded guilty in the Bundaberg District Court on March 31 to distributing child exploitation material, knowingly possessing child exploitation material and using a carriage service to access child abuse material.

Crown prosecutor Carla Ahern told the court Clarke had come to the attention of the Australian Federal Police on September 14, 2020, after they received information that he had uploaded child exploitation material to social media platform Twitter on five occasions.

A search warrant followed soon after, during which Clarke admitted to his offending.

“During the search the defendant told police that he would set up fake social media accounts pretending to be young children,” Ms Ahern told the court.

Police found 50 open internet browser tabs on Clarke’s Xbox, which contained child exploitation material from various websites.

Some of the images involved children under the age of 12 being abused.

On Clarke’s phone, police found 109 unique Interpol Category 1 images out of 13,204 files.

The court heard Clarke had filed the images in folders labelled “kids” and “porn”.

Clarke was also found to possess 36 unique Interpol Category 1 videos out of 241 video files.

He was arrested after the search.

Defence barrister Simone Bain said Clarke had been diagnosed with learning disabilities at the age of seven, and had been assessed as having learning disabilities, ADHD, autism and behavioral concerns at age 12.

Ms Bain said her client had been embarrassed and ashamed of his actions and now had the support of a carer he could have discussions with.

The court also heard that Clarke’s family had been working to involve him in family activities and support him away from offending.

He was also being supported by a psychologist fortnightly and had been making “significant changes” to address his behaviour.

Judge Nathan Jarro told Clarke he needed to realise the footage he was viewing was of real children who were being abused.

For the offence of distributing child exploitation material, Clarke was sentenced to two years’ prison, suspended for four years.

For knowingly possessing child exploitation material, he was sentenced to two years’ probation.

For using a carriage service to access child abuse material, Clarke was placed on a three-year recognisance.

Convictions were recorded.