Former priest, ALP staffer pleads guilty to child porn offences
A former priest, ALP branch president and compensation lawyer has pleaded guilty to 23 child exploitation charges having been arrested at Sydney Airport 12 months ago.
Central Sydney
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Border force officers who searched the baggage of a former priest and ALP branch president at Sydney Airport last year found a hard drive containing seven videos of young boys engaged in sexual acts, it can be revealed.
Peter Andrew Hansen on Wednesday pleaded guilty to 23 child exploitation charges having spent the last 12 months behind bars following his arrest in October 2018.
The 61-year-old had served as the president of the Labor Party’s Cabramatta branch until March 2019 and was previously a priest for the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne until 2011.
Among the charges include 15 counts of producing child pornography, said to have occurred in the Philippines and Vietnam between April 13, 2014 and December 21, 2017.
There are also five charges of using a carriage service to transmit child pornography between October 2016 and January 2017.
The former self-employed compensation lawyer has also pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child abuse material and importing prohibited tier 2 goods — the aforementioned videos — respectively.
Stomach-churning police facts tendered as evidence in Central Local Court revealed the contents of the videos found on an external hard drive located in his bags on October 6, 2018.
Hansen was stopped for further examination by Australian Border Force officers as he re-entered the country, having spent several months living in Vietnam.
Inside his baggage officers found a Lenovo laptop, a mobile phone, one external hard drive, a Sony digital camera, four USBs and four SIM cards.
One officer viewed a sample of the material found on the hard drive, which contained seven videos.
The videos depicted underage male children who were “instructed to remove their clothing and perform sexual acts on themselves and other children”, the police facts stated,
A title page aired prior to the video beginning listed the name and ages of the children, revealing them to be between 12 and 15 years old, according to the facts.
Hansen declined an interview and was taken to Mascot police station.
There he was charged with three offences — produce child pornography outside Australia, possess child abuse material and intentionally import prohibited tier-2 goods without approval.
An extra 22 charges had been laid on Hansen while he was on remand at Kariong Correctional Centre. Two of the charges have been withdrawn.
Hansen, who described himself as a “proud Cabramattan” and speaks fluent Vietnamese, remained president of the western Sydney ALP branch until March 4, 2019 — five months after his arrest.
His matter has been committed for sentence at Downing Centre District Court, where it will be mentioned on October 18.