Murray Bridge man Anthony Steven Gray jailed after police find disturbing child abuse images and video on phone

An SA supermarket manager has been jailed after coming from from work to find cops waiting for him with his partner.

A Murray Bridge supermarket manager has been jailed – and fired – after a police investigation unearthed hundreds of sickening images of child sex hidden on his phone.

Anthony Steven Gray, 32, faced the District Court last week for sentencing after pleading guilty to one count of knowingly being in possession of child exploitation material.

The court heard police had arrived at Gray’s property on May 20 last year, and remained at the home with his partner until he returned home from work.

“You told them (police) that you knew what they were talking about and that you had come across child exploitation material in the course of searching for general pornography,” Judge Emily Telfer said. “You told the police that you had immediately clicked out of it and deleted your browser history to cover up that you had clicked on it.

“At their (police’s) request you also provided the password to a password protected folder which held data on the phone. You told them that they would find child exploitation material in that folder and that you would probably download child exploitation material and save it to that folder.

The man was sentenced last week. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

“You had saved images of children from toddlers to teens. You told the police that there was no particular age group that was of interest to you.

“You had viewed child exploitation material on the dark web for about 12 months after ordinary pornography became boring to you. It was exciting to you to explore what was available on the dark web.”

The court heard analysis of the material in the folder uncovered 92 images and 40 videos of child abuse.

One video, Judge Telfer noted, depicted a young child “engaged in acts of bestiality”.

“Serious harm is caused to children who are sexually exploited in the industry that generates child exploitation material,” she said.

“People who download images of child exploitation create a demand which is answered by the very real abuse of children including very young children.

“Every time someone downloads a child exploitation image the child who has been abused for the creation of the image is re-victimised.”

Gray was sentenced to 11 months and 22 days imprisonment – suspended upon serving just one month in custody before entering into a two-year good behaviour bond.

Originally published as Murray Bridge man Anthony Steven Gray jailed after police find disturbing child abuse images and video on phone