Bradley Payne-Moore: Canberra image consultant faces court over online child abuse crimes

A self-styled men’s activist wants to stay out of jail because he lost business and friends when he admitted to online child abuse crimes. Warning: Parts of this article may distress readers.

A failed former Canberra “image consultant” hopes he will be spared jail time because most of his mates stopped talking to him when they learned he had a vile online child abuse habit.

Bradley Payne-Moore, 32, faced the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday on charges of possessing and accessing child abuse material.

The court heard graphic descriptions of Payne-Moore’s collection of “disturbing videos depicting death, bestiality and child abuse were uncovered”.

Bradley Payne-Moore’s image consultancy business failed soon after he admitted to online child abuse crimes. Picture: Facebook/Supplied

Bradley Payne-Moore is trying to avoid jail time over his online child abuse offending. Picture: Facebook/Supplied

Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson said viewing a small sample of the Payne-Moore’s collection was “the most unfortunate, invidious part of judicial duties”.

Payne-Moore’s lawyer, Andrew Fraser, said his client should avoid jail, largely because he had lost mates since the publication of a news story about him pleading guilty.

Clients in his image consultancy business had also abandoned him, and he was now so broke he couldn’t afford to keep seeing a psychologist.

Commonwealth prosecutor David Bloomfield said: “simply losing friends and some form of business” wasn’t the sort of consequence which would justify Payne-Moore dodging a stint in jail.

Bradley Payne-Moore leaves the ACT Supreme Court after a sentencing hearing. He has pleaded guilty to online child abuse offences. Picture: Craig Dunlop

Payne-Moore, giving evidence, said he downloaded a folder containing 6000 photos and videos.

The folder had been deleted by the time police raided Payne-Moore’s home, but a police search uncovered 137 files left on his computer as a result of his handling of the files.

Payne-Moore has admitted to accessing some of the material, although an AFP computer forensics expert is expected to give more detailed evidence about the material when the case returns to court.

Payne-Moore told the court he only looked at the least incriminating of the material when he was in the lowest depths of a 15-year “masturbation problem”.

He “absolutely” denied having a “sexual predilection for children”.

Justice Loukas-Karlsson said Payne-Moore should not be optimistic about the possibility of an dodging jail time, even though she ordered him to be assessed for an intensive corrections order.

“You need to understand how serious, how appalling and how depraved these offences are,” she said.

“These are not photographs, these are not videos, these are human beings.”

Bradley Payne-Moore once worked to “help men better themselves”. He is now facing a likely jail stint. Picture: Facebook/Supplied

Payne-Moore, an amateur strongman competitor and self-styled men’s activist ran a now-defunct business called Guardian Gent, which aimed to “help men better themselves” by offering one-on-one personal, professional and “emotional guidance”.

Payne-Moore last year boasted of his contribution to men’s rights at a Canberra business breakfast.

“My favourite word is responsibility, and where does responsibility come from? Accountability,” he said. “Accountability breeds responsibility.”

“When I talk to men, I don’t lean on that ‘not all men’ thing.”

He returns to court in May, and is expected to be sentenced in June.