Wilton man Ryan Mercer pleads guilty to possessing child abuse material

During a search of a Sydney man’s home for child abuse material, the man in question told officers he didn’t know what child abuse material was. However, police soon discovered thousands of sexualised images of young girls.

Ryan Mercer has pleaded guilty to possessing child abuse material after police raided his home and found thousands of images.

A man told police he was disgusted with himself after officers uncovered three devices with thousands of pictures and videos of child abuse material when they raided a Sydney home.

Ryan Mercer, 40, fronted Picton Local Court on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to possessing child abuse material after his arrest in October.

Court documents state Mercer was unemployed and residing at his family home in Wilton when officers raided his home after a search warrant was granted under an investigation for the dissemination and possession of child abuse material.

At 10am on August 28, investigators searching the property asked Mercer if there was any child abuse material on the premises. He replied, according to court documents, “what’s child abuse material?”

When detectives explained to the 40-year-old what was considered to be child abuse material, he was again asked and, he replied “I dunno”.

Ryan Mercer outside Picton Local Court.

During the search, several electronic devices and storage devices were seized for examination including USB memory sticks, hard drives, computers and mobile phones with three of the seized items to be identified of interest.

Those items included a hard drive with 189,710 files, and two USBs containing 7520 files and 2248 files.

An initial review of the three devices located thousands of images of pre-pubescent girls in highly sexualised poses, for example wearing underwear laying on a bed.

Among the files were numerous images of pre-pubescent females with the camera focused on their genital area.

Also uncovered were more images and videos that ranged from naked girls under 14 alone, with other girls their same age, or content of them in sexual situations.

Two months later on October 13, police attended Mercer’s home again and arrested him. During an interview, he made full admissions to downloading and viewing the child abuse material and told officers “I feel disgusted with myself”.

“Of extreme concern to police is the extreme amount of images (tens of thousands) of young pre-pubescent females wearing revealing clothing and in sexualised poses,” police facts state.

“It is clear that the accused has developed and attraction to young pre-pubescent females.”

At court on Wednesday, Magistrate David Degnan ordered a sentence assessment report and warned Mercer he could face jail time.