Child porn collector and former diplomat Anthony Mitchener jailed over photo stash
Anthony Mitchener, who amassed hundreds of vile child porn images for his own sexual gratification, has been sentenced in the ACT Supreme Court.
Canberra Star
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A former Australian diplomat who had a stash of child porn because he wasn’t getting enough attention from his wife will spend Christmas in jail.
Anthony Mitchener, 59, was on Wednesday sentenced to a year behind bars, to be suspended after three months served, marking the final step in his downfall from his former lavish expat lifestyle.
Mitchener, who in June pleaded guilty to possessing and transmitting child porn, looked stunned as prison guards walked into the gallery of the ACT Supreme Court just before sentencing proceedings began on Wednesday, signalling his fate.
The former diplomatic high-flyer and University of Canberra lecturer had argued he should be spared jail because being locked up might ruin any chance of having a meaningful relationship with his children, some of whom have already shunned him.
Justice Michael Elkaim rejected that argument, saying Mitchener needed to be locked up, in part, to send a message to other would-be child porn offenders.
Justice Elkaim also rejected the father-of-five’s suggestion that he slipped into looking up pictures of children being brutalised because his now-estranged wife was not giving him enough attention.
He said relationship issues such as those Mitchener was going though “might turn a person towards adult pornography” but “cannot justify the continuation toward child pornography”.
Mitchener emailed himself 226 times with images of children, and the photos remained in his email account for as long as 14 months.
Mitchener, who is also a former major in the Australian Army reserves, had no criminal record and was vouched for in a series of glowing character references.
Justice Elkaim said the number of photos Mitchener possessed and transmitted lead to the “almost inevitable inference that the material was for the offender’s sexual gratification”.
He said Mitchener had not shown remorse to the victims of the child porn trade.
“You cannot look at material of this type and not be overwhelmed by the impact,” Justice Elkaim said.
He Mitchener did not seem to grasp the “humiliation, horror and long-term damage that each and every child pictured will suffer” as a result of being abused.
Mitchener will be released on a good behaviour conditions in March.