Steven Duff pleads guilty to possessing child abuse material

A 28-year-old Gympie man, caught with a horror child abuse collection in his caravan featuring victims ‘no older than seven’, has been sentenced. The man had images stored across seven devices, the court heard.

A single IP address was the spark which led to the arrest of a 28-year-old Gympie man caught in possession of about 3000 child exploitation pictures, some “graphic” in nature.

Steven Duff told police about his stash of images when they arrived at his caravan’s doorstep on August 12, 2021 and started to search.

They had received information about the IP address and followed it to Duff.

Gympie District Court heard the images were stored across seven devices including tablets and mobile phones.

They had been accessed online through Dropbox and Google accounts, as well as shared with other users on a social media chat.

The images included pre-pubescent children, some of which depicted graphic acts including rape.

Duff pleaded guilty in Gympie District Court to charges of possessing child exploitation material and distributing child exploitation material.

Duff pleaded guilty to possessing child exploitation material, and distributing child exploitation material.

Judge Glen Cash said a pre-sentencing psychological report found Duff, who was on a Disability Support pension, found he was intellectually impaired and displayed pedophilic and paraphiliac behaviour.

Judge Glen Cash told Duff the pictures were “terrible and fully abhorrent material”.

While his criminal recorded included burglary and entering premises crimes, this was the first time he had appeared in court on exploitation charges.

He sentenced Duff, who had spent the seven months since his August 2021 arrest behind bars, to two years probation, noting he had no history of similar offences on his record.