Gold Coasters who faced court for child abuse material named and shamed
Queensland Police have arrested 58 people in a crackdown on online child exploitation material. Here are the names of offenders who have previously faced court for this crime.
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Queensland Police have arrested 58 people and removed 23 children from harm in a three-year crackdown on online child exploitation material that’s included the Gold Coast.
Operation Molto targeted the production and distribution of such material and led police to multiple accounts linked to a cloud storage platform where material was allegedly found.
Since launching in 2019, officers involved in the operation executed 71 raids across Queensland – including the Gold Coast.
There have been 423 charges laid across the state as a result.
Adults found guilty of child exploitation material offences in the state are highly likely to go to jail, according to recent data.
In the decade to 2017, the majority (78.1 per cent) of offenders who went to court received a prison sentence.
That was according to the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council’s Sentencing Spotlight on child exploitation material offences report – which collated this data for the first time.
The report found young offenders were predominantly required to undertake a diversion program for sexting-based offences.
QSAC member Helen Watkins said: “Young people don’t realise that sexting is actually a child exploitation material offence.
“We have been advised by Queensland Police Service that (in 2016) a new policy direction for sexting was formalised by police, who now take an educative approach for some of these offences.”
Gold Coasters and Tweed residents caught with child abuse material named:
Matthew Ellis Atkins
A Tweed Heads dad who used child abuse material to “extort paedophiles” will spend the next three months behind bars.
Matthew Ellis Atkins, 49, was sentenced in Tweed Heads Local Court earlier this month after he previously pleaded guilty to possessing child abuse material.
The court heard Atkins was found with 52 images of naked, pre-pubescent females during a search on February 25.
According to court papers throughout the police investigation Atkins maintained he searched for and possessed child abuse material for the purpose of identifying paedophiles on the internet so he could extort them for financial gain.
Defence lawyer Tom Ivey told the court Atkins usually deleted the images once he was done with them and at the time of the search believed he did not have any.
However he conceded Atkins did possess the images at various points in time.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Nathan Lockett told the court regardless of Atkins’ intention, he had still contributed to the harm of the children in the images.
Magistrate Geoff Dunlevy accepted Atkins had not used the images for his own sexual gratification, however he was baiting people who were “certainly” using the images for that purpose.
“It’s your use of human suffering as a form of bait or currency that’s most disturbing to the court,” Mr Dunlevy said.
“It is simply not acceptable for you to take on some sort of quasi law enforcement role in this fashion.”
Atkins was sentenced to nine months imprisonment with a three-month non-parole period.
Kristopher Marc Racette
A Gold Coast real estate agent caught with 65 videos of child abuse material will be back on the streets after eight months in prison.
The videos showed children in various states of undress and being touched.
The prosecutor told the court Kristopher Marc Racette had said the activity had been for the “thrill” of it.
The 41-year-old pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court in February to multiple charges, including possessing child exploitation material.
Judge Katherine McGinness sentenced him to three years’ prison to be suspended after he has served eight months.
She also ordered he complete two years’ probation.
Defence lawyer Bill Potts, of Potts Lawyers, told the court Racette was experiencing alcohol abuse problems at the time of offending.
He said Racette went to counselling and underwent a sexual offenders program prior to police being involved.
Judge McGinness pointed out that was only done after Racette was found with the videos.
Mr Potts said there had been no further offending and Racette had been assessed as a “low risk of reoffending”.
Mr Potts said the offending indicated a “person who has acted not only in an abhorrent way but also in a way that could be seen as out of character”.
Myles Andrew Lyster
Movie World worker Myles Andrew Lyster pleaded guilty to possessing child exploitation material and using a restricted computer without consent when he faced Southport District Court in January 2020.
Lyster, 49, admitted emailing himself hundreds of sexually explicit pictures of children and women enjoying rides at the Gold Coast theme park.
The photos, which included upskirting images of young girls and pictures of adult women with their breasts exposed, were taken from cameras usually used to capture happy snaps to sell to park guests.
Lyster’s bosses at Movie World approached police when they caught him sending the accidentally explicit photos to himself, which are usually not sold or otherwise made public.
Police officers also discovered four sexual images of girls aged between six and 11 at Lyster’s home.
Lyster, who the court was told was suffering from depression and bipolar disorder, was sentenced to six months in prison, wholly suspended, and placed on probation for two years.
He had no prior criminal history.
Kurt William Nicholls
A man was jailed after police found thousands of images and videos of child porn on his computer.
Kurt William Nicholls, 27, was sentenced in Tweed Heads Local Court last year for dissemination or possession of child abuse material.
According to court papers, police found images and videos of pre-pubescent girls and boys engaged in sexual activity and adult men with pre-pubescent girls.
Police say it appeared Nicholls had gathered a large amount of child abuse material over an extensive period of time.
The offence first came to police attention after a man purchased a computer tower off Nicholls in July 2020.
The buyer’s friend was using the computer when he came across a technical issue. In an attempt to fix the problem he found files labelled “5-year-old”, “8-year-old”, and “10-year-old” which had images of children in sexual poses.
The witness removed the hard drive and handed it into Nimbin Police.
Earlier that year in March the user ‘midnightrider94’ had uploaded 98 images and videos of category 1 and 2 child abuse material to a Google platform.
The same user uploaded a video to the same platform on November 30, 2020.
Police tracked the IP address to Nicholls’ mother’s home where he lived.
A search warrant was conducted on May 5, 2021 where Nicholls said ‘midnightrider94’ was his YouTube username.
Nicholls told police he hadn’t accessed the child abuse material for years but he did when he was young.
When asked if there was some on his computer he said “not that I’m aware of”.
Police seized a hard drive from the computer where they located thousands of images and videos of child abuse material along with videos of Nicholls filming himself playing video games.
The images and videos included those uploaded in March and November 2020.
Defence lawyer Cassandra Bennett told the court during early sentencing remarks that Nicholls had expressed a lot of shame over the offences.
Magistrate Geoff Dunlevy convicted and sentenced Nicholls to 15 months in jail.
He will be eligible for parole on January 18, 2023.
Teen distributed child exploitation material
A boy began sharing child exploitation material on social media app Snapchat so he could access an internet chatroom, a court was told.
Police raided the boy’s home after an IP address linked to the teen was discovered uploading abuse material to an internet dropbox.
Police discovered content on two phones and a laptop, including 269 images and 46 videos.
The boy pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court in February to possessing and distributing child exploitation material.
He was aged 16 and 17 at the time of the offending, but is now 18.
His identity cannot be revealed for legal reasons.
A log of Snapchat messages showed the boy sent material, including 74 images and dropbox links, to another user on five occasions between May 26, 2020 and January 6, 2021.
The boy made admissions to police and told them he began searching for the material when he discovered the encrypted chat app Discord.
It required him to share the material in order to access the chatroom, the court was told.
Judge Katherine McGinness sentenced the boy to 18 months’ probation and opted against recording a conviction.
Gregory Alan Bremen
A retired Army captain was jailed for the third time in 13 years for possessing “revolting” child abuse material – including a story about a six-month-old baby.
Gregory Alan Bremen pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court in June to distributing child exploitation material, encouraging the use of a child exploitation website and failing to comply with reporting conditions.
The 65-year-old was caught through a covert police operation.
The material found in the sting in March and April 2020 involved a number of fictional stories about the sexual abuse of young children, including sharing a website with a police officer.
Judge William Everson said: “There are no child victims involved. However, it is still disturbing.
“The fantasy of sexual accounts with children under the age of one can only be described as revolting.”
Judge Everson also described the offending as “deviant and deplorable”.
Bremen was sentenced to two years’ prison to be eligible for parole on February 8 2022.
After his sentencing, supporters of Bremen hugged and kissed him before he was led into the cells in the watchhouse.
The court was told that between March 1 and April 15, 2020 Bremen spoke with undercover police officers and sent them sexual abuse stories involving children.
He also sent photographs of children’s underwear and a video of him masturbating into the garment.
Bremen also referred officers to a website containing sexual abuse stories.
The former Army captain also did not provide police with his usernames for the messaging apps Wickr and Kik as he is required to under sexual offender reporting laws.
The court was told Bremen was jailed in August 2008 for distributing child abuse material and sent to prison again in April 2014 for using a carriage service to distribute child abuse material.
The court was told Bremen had been undergoing treatment with a psychologist.
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Originally published as Gold Coasters who faced court for child abuse material named and shamed
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