Gregory Allen Cavanagh sentenced for child exploitation material
A 55-year-old amateur artist claims he was honing his skills of painting children when he accidentally downloaded over 50,000 child exploitation images and videos.
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A 55-year-old amateur artist claims he was looking for inspiration to hone his skills of painting children when he accidentally downloaded over 50,000 child exploitation images.
Gregory Allen Cavanagh was sentenced to two years’ prison in Maroochydore District Court on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to possessing child exploitation material on June 13, 2018.
The court heard police raided Cavanagh’s Bli Bli home and seized electronic devices that contained 51,600 child exploitation images and 1100 videos of children age between six and 13.
Crown prosecutor Greg Cummings told the court the material included 51,525 photos of children in sexual poses, 107 were images of children engaging in sexual activities, six images were of an adult interacting with a child and 72 images saw a child interacting with an adult with penetration.
Mr Cummings said the videos included 54 films of children engaging in sexual activities, 163 of children engaged in sexual activity with an adult and five included sadism and bestiality.
He said the offence attracted a two or two-and-a-half year prison sentence.
Unrepresented Cavanagh, who was 52 at the time of the offending, said he was looking online for photos to help improve his painting skills.
“Painting children is far harder than painting adults,” he said.
“Their skin is softer, their faces are more rounded, there is less colour definition.
“So to proceed my skills … I wanted to paint children and specifically I wanted to do an Alice in Wonderland painting and I wanted to do a couple of children on a beach.
“Adding children to that scene would make a fantastic painting.”
He said it was too expensive to hire adults and he started looking at online artistic libraries and BitTorrent.
“I guess I wasn’t careful enough and i’ve picked up some graphic material,” he said.
Cavanagh asked for mercy and suggested a 12-month prison sentence.
He will be eligible for parole on December 30, 2022.
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