Ipswich medical professional guilty of sharing child exploitation material

An Ipswich man was sentenced in court for sharing disturbing child exploitation material. online. WARNING: Disturbing content

An Ipswich man was sentenced in court for sharing disturbing child exploitation material online.

An Ipswich man was sentenced after pleading guilty to distributing child exploitation material (CEM) after police found six folders containing sexualised images and videos of pre-pubescent girls on his computer.

The Queensland Times cannot name the medical professional because the father’s legal team, Leading Queensland criminal defence firm Robertson O’Gorman, was successful in obtaining a non-publication order.

Barrister Andrew Hoare’s submission was accepted that significant harm beyond mere embarrassment, distress, and loss of privacy, would befall a woman linked to the case if the man was named.

Mr Hoare has represented high profile criminal cases including Noosa councilman Frank Pardon who was found guilty of the indecent treatment of a child, and the manslaughter of 10-year old-Queensland boy Curtis Powell.

Mr Hoare told Judge Tony Moynihan the application wasn’t to protect his client.

“There will be a particular harm that she will suffer as an innocent person,” he said.

Crown prosecutor Michelle Parfitt did not oppose the non-publication order and accepted there would be a risk to the young woman tied to the case.

Prosecutor Parfitt said police raided the middle aged man’s home in 2018 after a special task force targeting online sex offenders found concerning images being “passively” shared from man’s IP address.

The court heard the six folders contained sexualised photos of young girls in various stages of undress and posing naked.

There was also two videos of young girls dancing stripping naked.

Prosecutor Parfitt said the files were inaccessible because the man, who had no criminal history, had deleted them.

The man told officers he got rid of the files after he realised what they were and Prosecutor Parfitt said he was released on bail after spending no time in custody.

“This is a serious crime that carries a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment,” she said.

“It is not a victimless crime and real children are involved in creating this material.”

Mr Hoare said the circumstances around the offending and stressors leading up to the man accessing CEM were “entirely unique”.

“There is a man who is facing unique pressures involving his daughter’s issues, he’s trying to address those issues, and he has seen a way forward in respect of the issue by altering images,” he said.

Mr Hoare said his unemployed client was at low risk of reoffending and planned to go back to work.

Although the crime of distributing CEM requires defendants to spend some time in prison, Judge Moynihan accepted there were ‘exceptional circumstances’ in the case.

Despite the court hearing there were exceptional circumstances surrounding the offending, Prosecutor Parfitt, Mr Hoare, and Judge Moynihan did not read the details into the record despite it being an open court matter.

Judge Moynihan sentenced the man to a two year probation order.

No conviction was recorded.