Whitsundays man pleads guilty to making child exploitation material

A Queensland mother was shocked when she came across a video on her own computer of her young daughter naked preparing for a shower in the bathroom of her family home.

A Whitsundays man who secretly filmed his stepdaughter naked in the bathroom of their family home has been described as “calculated” and “cunning”.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the 13-year-old girl in the video, set up a camera in the bathroom before the teen’s shower.

He pleaded guilty in Mackay District Court to making child exploitation material.

Judge Leanne Clare said the man filmed a 13-minute video of the child undressing and naked before retrieving the camera and saving the footage to the computer he shared with the girl’s mother.

“It was one occasion, but it was calculated and it took some effort to produce that video,” Judge Clare said.

“Even though this is not an offence that involved any physical contact with the victim, it was nonetheless a very intimate violation and a gross betrayal of the trust of both your wife and your daughter.

“The man in the family, who acted as her father, had recorded her naked body and preserved it for his sexual pleasure.”

The court heard the perpetrator’s former wife found the video unhidden in the computer’s saved pictures folder.

She alerted police and the man was charged on March 13, 2020.

The man, now 31, appeared via video link from Capricornia Correctional Centre and apologised to those his actions had impacted.

“I apologise completely for everything that I’ve done. This has destroyed so many lives and I completely regret all actions taken,” he said.

“No apology is enough really, your honour.”

Crown prosecutor Farook Anoozer told the court the man had not previously been convicted of crimes of this nature but he did have a criminal history in Queensland for drug possession and aggression towards a former partner.

He said the victims had suffered mentally and financially, and had felt forced to move houses as a result of the offending.

Mr Anoozer told the court the man was mature and in a position of trust.

He requested the man be sentenced to 12 to 15 months in jail.

Defence Barrister Scott McLennan told the court his client had not watched the video for some time before it was discovered.

He said the video had not been accessed since two months after it was captured.

“My client said he thought he deleted it, he did it once and he regretted it,” he said.

Mr McLennan explained the man was in the third year of an engineering degree which he had to stop when he entered custody.

He has spent his time at Capricornia tutoring inmates in maths and English.

Mr McLennan said he believed 12 months with the sentence suspended would be appropriate.

Judge Clare said her sentence would take into account the man would become a reported sex offender on release because there would be an element of supervision over who he associated with and what he could access through the internet.

She sentenced the man to 14 months in jail which began on November 15, 2021 when he went into custody.

Judge Clare suspended the rest of the sentence which will hang over his head for the next two years.