Primary teacher’s aide sentenced for distributing child abuse images
A Brisbane primary school worker arrested on school grounds has admitted to accessing and distributing child abuse content.
Southeast
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A primary school teacher’s aide who posed as young girls on Instagram so he could exchange child abuse material has been sentenced to probation.
Education assistant Suyash Vaidya, 24, was arrested on the playground at Mansfield State School after police discovered 160 child exploitation images and videos on his personal laptop and phone in November 2019.
The Brisbane District Court was told how Vaidya had searched online for nude images of children and created two fake Instagram accounts using Google images of girls aged 12 and 13 with the caption #sweetdreams.
Crown prosecutor Jane Shaw detailed how Vaidya had sent and received child abuse material through the fake Instagram accounts in the three weeks before his arrest.
“The fact they’d been saved, viewed and stored on two devices and shared makes it egregious,” Ms Shaw said.
“It’s further contributing to the encouragement and promotion of the sexual exploitation and objectification of the most vulnerable of children all around the world.
“And he was in a position of working with young children and should have known very well.”
Vaidya, of Parkinson, pleaded guilty in the district court to four charges including accessing, distributing and possessing child exploitation material.
Barrister Michael Nicolson told the court that after his arrest, Vaidya had made full admissions about his offending to police and resigned from his position at the school.
Mr Nicholson argued that Vaidya’s age, lack of criminal history, early plea of guilty and strong family support amounted to “exceptional circumstances” that warranted a suspended sentence.
He said Vaidya had engaged with psychologists and was now studying a bachelor of business.
Judge Orazio Rinaudo AM said Vaidya’s offending had helped perpetuate the “significant humiliation and stress” that victims of child exploitation experience.
But he agreed with Mr Nicolson’s submission that his sentence should be served in the community.
“The way that you’ve conducted yourself with maintaining education and employment shows that you are somebody that could and should be a contributing member of society,” Judge Rinaudo said.
Vaidya was sentenced to 18 months’ jail wholly suspended for two years.
He was also sentenced to 18 months’ probation.
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