Aaron Michael Carney pleads guilty in Taree court to having child abuse material while already on protection register

A young Mid-North Coast man – already registered as a child sex offender – has gone on undeterred to access illicit child abuse material depicting girls as young as 10. Here’s what we know.

Aaron Michael Carney pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to access child abuse material and failing to comply with obligations of being on the Child Protection Register. Picture: iStock

A 22-year-old Taree man, already registered as a child sex offender, has gone on undeterred, to access child abuse material depicting girls as young as 10.

Aaron Michael Carney accessed preview images from a website – which we have chosen not to name – which changed every three seconds.

Carney would watch the images, which depicted underage girls having sex with men for about an hour each time. He told police he had been watching the content regularly, sometimes daily, since 2021.

Carney has pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to access child abuse material and failing to comply with obligations of being on the Child Protection Register.

Aaron Carney leaves Taree court on June 11.

Officers went to Carney’s Taree home on October 5 last year to check if he was complying with the conditions of being on the child protection register, according to police documents exclusively obtained by this publication.

Carney handed over his phone and personal identification number. Police soon found he had accessed child abuse material on two websites with “3-17” and “5-7” in the titles.

Asked about the images, Carney said the girls depicted were “possibly 14 or something”.

He told officers he was attracted to girls as young as 10.

Carney also had an X (formerly Twitter) account in breach of the conditions of being on the protection register.

He will be sentenced in Taree District Court on August 12.

The maximum penalty for using a carriage service to access child abuse material is 15 years in jail.