Former diplomat Anthony ‘Tony’ Mitchener faces jail over child porn in family home
Ex-diplomat and Canberra university lecturer Anthony Raymond Mitchener’s two young kids used to watch popular children’s music video Baby Shark on the same computer he kept his vile stash of child pornography on.
Canberra Star
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A top former diplomat and University of Canberra lecturer watched child porn on the same computer he would watch Baby Shark on with his young children, a court has heard.
Anthony Raymond Mitchener, 59, fronted the ACT Supreme Court on Tuesday where Commonwealth Prosecutor Alexander von Treifeldt urged Justice Michael Elkaim to send the former public servant to jail.
Mitchener earlier this year pleaded guilty to charges of possessing and transmitting child pornography.
Mr von Treifeldt said the only reason Mitchener had given for possessing and transmitting child pornography was that he was “feeling frustrated” at the lack of attention his now-estranged wife was giving him.
He said Mitchener’s offending took place in the family home, and put the two children there at risk of being exposed to the depraved material.
In an interview with police after his arrest, Mitchener said his children, now aged six and two, would use his home computer to watch videos, including Baby Shark.
Mitchener also blamed the Australian Federal Police “for not better protecting the community from child pornography”, Mr von Treifeldt said.
Mitchener, a former Australian diplomat in Thailand and Indonesia, faces a maximum 15 year jail sentence.
His barrister, John Purnell SC, said Mitchener had been lonely and that his offending began after his interest in adult pornography morphed into child porn.
“He recognises that these crimes are simply disgusting, that they’re vile and that they cause revulsion in the community,” Mr Purnell said.
“He’s ashamed.”
Mr Purnell said the breakdown of his relationship and his wife leaving him amounted to “punishment, for a loving father”.
He said if Mitchener were jailed, whatever was left of his relationship with his children might never recover.
But Justice Elkaim said: “It’s a hell of a lot bigger thing for those kids in the pictures.”
Mitchener’s professional and personal reputations were now ruined in the tight-knit Australian-Indonesian community, Mr Purnell said.
Mitchener will be sentenced on Thursday.