Nurse Ronald Peter Fogarty jailed for sick child abuse images

A Sunshine Coast nurse has been sentenced to 18 months’ jail after police discovered he had accessed at least 540 sick child abuse images with victims as young as two years old.

Sunshine Coast University Hospital

A Sunshine Coast nurse has been sentenced to 18 months’ 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, from Eudlo, was sentenced by District Court Judge Paul Smith on Friday to a head sentence of 18 months, but to be released after he serves three months.

He must be of good behaviour for three years or risk being returned to prison.

The court heard Fogarty worked for Sunshine Coast University Hospital but resigned before he was charged by police with a charge of using a carriage service to access child abuse material.

In sentencing the father of 10 children, Judge Smith noted that police estimated he had accessed 541 child sex image files on his phone between August 13 and 21 last year, including some of children aged from two to 12 being raped by older men.

Police got his mobile phone and downloaded its contents after they searched it on August 21 during an investigation to online child porn.

Defence barrister Mark McCarthy tendered a psychiatric report on Fogarty in court which stated he had autism spectrum disorder and was never a physical risk to children, and was not a paedophile.

Judge Smith told Fogarty that he developed a delusional belief that the images he saw were not real.

“It appears you deliberately searched for it,” Judge Smith said of the child sexual abuse images.

For the first year of his probation, Fogarty will be supervised by a probation officer and cannot travel interstate or overseas without permission, the court heard.