Liverpool: Child sex offender sentenced for breaching child protection orders
A convicted child sex offender has been sentenced for breaching the conditions of a child protection order after he was found with a Snapchat image of a young boy edited with devil horns.
Liverpool
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A convicted child sex offender has been sentenced for breaching the conditions of a child protection order after he was found with a Snapchat image of a young boy edited with devil horns.
A 57-year-old appeared before Liverpool Local Court on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to three counts of contravening a prohibition order on September 15 and October 12 after police found photos of children on his iPad, laptop and iPhone.
Documents tendered to court state under the prohibiton orders he must not be in possession of any images depicting persons under the age of 18 years.
The man was convicted at Parramatta District Court in March 2015 for 10 offences of aggravated sexual assault of victim under the age of 16, grooming a child under 14 years of age for unlawful sexual activity and three charges of procuring a child under 14 years for unlawful sexual activity.
These offences involved six male victims between the age of 11-16 years old and took place between 2000 and 2012. The man is on parole until April 2028.
Agreed facts state police inspected his iPhone in September and found a screenshot of a boy aged between 10 and 14 “with two devil horns on his head” in a folder titled ‘recently deleted’.
Police also searched his laptop and found six photographs of boys aged between eight to 12 in a folder titled ‘family’.
When questioned on why he had the photo he said: “There was a picture yes … I made a mistake on it and I deleted it.”
“The man changed his version, telling police that the photograph was a screenshot of the profile story of a Snapchat user,” the facts state.
The account is a member of a Snapchat ‘clan’ group chat where the man is part of an online gaming group.
“The man would later admit that he accepted a friend request from [the account] and suspected they were a child due to their profile story … and stated despite this he did not unfriend or unblock the user suspected of being a child,” the facts state.
Police held “serious concerns” as the man had photos of a young boy the same age of his 2015 victims and suspected he was using the platform to “groom young boys”.
The following month, police found images from 30 years ago of his deceased parents with his nieces – who are now adults – when they were infants.
“Police cautioned the man before he broke down in tears informing police that his parents are now deceased and he only had the photo as he wished to remember them,” facts state.
Magistrate Gareth Christofi said while the images of the children were “clothed” and “not sexualised”, he had to abide by his prohibition orders.
The man was convicted of all charges and sentenced to an 18 month community correction order. He must also perform 50 hours of community service work.
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