Steven Harry pleads guilty to child-abuse material charges
A western Sydney man told police ‘yeah, I’ve got photos’ before they found more than 550 child-abuse material images on his devices.
Penrith
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A man who pleaded guilty to possessing and transmitting child-abuse material told the police it “wasn’t a sexual thing” and he “looked at the fabrics, the styles, and the colours” on the photographs.
Steven John Harry, 36, of Oxley Park, was arrested last year after police became aware of his behaviour in February, 2019.
He has pleaded guilty to possessing/controlling child-abuse material using a carriage service, using a carriage service to solicit child-abuse material, using a carriage service to promote child-abuse material, and two counts of using a carriage service to transmit child-abuse material.
Eleven other charges were withdrawn by the DPP.
According to court documents, police attended Mr Harry’s work on Picrite Close, Prospect, in June last year with a search warrant.
When he was questioned about potential child-abuse material, he said “yeah, I’ve got photos on my phone”.
He then handed his phone to police, who found his photo app was open and displaying pictures of naked pre-pubescent children in sexual positions.
During an interview, he told police he had “mostly girls in bikinis, underwear, and there would be some naked ones”.
He told police he didn’t class the photos as “sexual”, saying he liked to look at the fabrics, the styles, and the colours in the photos.
Police said Mr Harry accessed a Russian site to download his child-abuse material, and also used an app.
He told police he knew that he was doing the wrong thing and wasn’t sure why he continued.
He also said he “didn’t like naked stuff” of girls that age, and said it was “bad judgment” that he’d taken screenshots of the photos.
During a forensic analysis of Mr Harry’s computer and phone, they found 60,000 images. Police analysed 1000 of the images and found 560 of them were in category 1 or 2, the worst type of child-abuse material.
They also found Mr Harry had used Snapchat and text messaging to send and receive child-abuse material.
Mr Harry will be sentenced in Penrith District Court on April 16.
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