Grandmother faces ACT Supreme Court after uploading child abuse to TikTok

A “cultural misunderstanding” developed into a criminal act when a grandmother uploaded a video of a toddler to TikTok, a court has heard.

The indecent video was uploaded to TikTok. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Tim Pascoe

A grandmother ran the risk of “major publication” when she filmed an indecent video of a toddler and uploaded it to TikTok, a court has heard.

The woman faced a sentence hearing on Friday in the ACT Supreme Court, which was told her offending had stemmed from a “cultural misunderstanding”.

She had previously pleaded guilty to charges of committing an aggravated act of indecency on a child and using a carriage service to publish child abuse material.

The court heard the offender, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was a foreign national who had moved to Australia later in life.

At the time of her crimes in January 2023, she was living in Canberra with her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter.

TikTok identified the video as child abuse material and alerted police. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Tim Pascoe

On the afternoon in question, the woman used her phone to record a video in which she exposed her granddaughter’s genitals.

She moved the phone closer to her granddaughter during the video, effectively zooming in on the toddler’s private parts.

An agreed statement of facts reveals she then saved the video in her TikTok app, which had the effect of publishing it to the social media company’s servers.

The woman subsequently sent her daughter, who is the victim’s mother, a link to the TikTok video using Facebook Messenger.

“[The daughter] viewed the video and immediately called the offender, telling her that the video was bad and that she needed to delete it,” the agreed facts state.

The victim’s parents are not accused of any wrongdoing, with the agreed facts noting they “displayed appropriate protective behaviour in the circumstances”.

The ACT courts, where the grandmother appeared on Friday. Picture: Sam Turner

The grandmother “unsent” the Facebook message the next day but did not delete the video from TikTok, which banned her account after identifying the clip as child abuse material.

TikTok reported the video to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, which in turn notified the Australian Federal Police.

Police arrested the grandmother, who was granted bail after a night in custody, in February 2023.

On Friday, the court heard the grandmother had been giving the toddler a “cultural massage” before the offences occurred.

Defence lawyer Georgia Le Couteur said while this explained why the child was naked, it did not account for the indecency that followed.

She added that the offender had mistakenly believed “unsending” the Facebook message would delete the video from TikTok.

Ms Le Couteur also told the court the grandmother had not intended to distribute the video to anyone other than her daughter, with whom it was privately shared, but filming the clip through the TikTok app had created “a very real risk of major publication”.

Prosecutor David Swan noted police had found no evidence the video had been available to the general public on TikTok.

Mr Swan also told the court the offender had pleaded guilty on the basis that her conduct had carried “inherent sexual connotations”.

However, he acknowledged there was nothing to suggest the grandmother had been motivated by sexual gratification.

Mr Swan ultimately submitted a jail sentence would be appropriate, though he said he was “certainly not” suggesting it should be served in full-time custody.

Ms Le Couteur said it was for Justice Belinda Baker to form a view as to whether the threshold for imprisonment had been crossed.

“This began out of a cultural misunderstanding,” the Legal Aid lawyer said.

“It has then developed into a criminal act.”

Justice Baker, who said she had not yet watched the video, ultimately reserved her sentencing decision.