Sunshine Coast nurse Ronald Peter Fogarty, 65, jailed for sick child abuse images featuring two-year-olds

A Sunshine Coast nurse has been jailed after police discovered he had accessed at least 540 sick child abuse images saved under “disturbing file names”, with victims as young as two years old.

Ronald Peter Fogarty, 65, worked at the Sunshine Coast University Hospital.

A Sunshine Coast nurse will spend his first night in jail after police discovered he had accessed at least 540 sick child abuse images with victims as young as two years old.

Ronald Peter Fogarty, 65, who until last year worked at the Sunshine Coast University Hospital, on Friday pleaded guilty in the Brisbane District Court to a charge of using a carriage service to access child abuse material.

Prosecutor Mathew Thompson said during a raid of Fogarty’s Eudlo home in August last year, police discovered 15 website tabs open on his phone which contained child abuse material.

“A later review of the phone’s browser history, and the history on that phone was available over a seven day period leading up to the execution of the (search) warrant, found the defendant had accessed 19 websites that contained child abuse material,” Mr Thompon said.

“Because of the format of some of the images contained on those websites, police were unable to ascertain how many images of child abuse material were accessed in that seven day period but it’s estimated it was in the order of 541 images.”

Mr Thompson said some of the disturbing file names of the images included ‘13yo f***’, ‘kids vagina’, and ‘young girl models’.

“Police reviewed the images and observed on one website the images depicted girls as young as two years of age up to about 12 years of age being penetrated by adult men,” he said.

Weeks after Fogarty’s arrest, the Health Ombudsman suspended his registration, prohibiting him from practising as a nurse.

Defence barrister Mark McCarthy said Fogarty had resigned his post at the Sunshine Coast hospital prior to his suspension and that it was unlikely he would be able to resume working in that field.

Mr McCarthy said there was evidence that Fogarty, who has no criminal history, developed a “delusional belief” that the images he was viewing were not real.

He said a psychological report tendered to the court said Fogarty had autism spectrum disorder which impeded his capacity to recognise social cues or empathise with the victims of the child abuse images.

Judge Paul Smith reserved his sentence until next Friday, saying he wanted time to review the case material before handing down his decision.

Fogarty, who has not served any time behind bars since being charged, was taken into custody to await sentence and made no application for bail.