Nathan Tomlinson: Top cameraman assaulted in prison
An award-winning cameraman who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for child abuse has been back in court to face further charges. The court heard he continued to blame others for his offending and had complained about being attacked in prison following media coverage of his case.
Southern Courier
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A Sydney cameraman who used his wealth and accolades to impress and have sex with underage girls claims he has been assaulted in prison following media coverage of his case, a court has heard.
Nathan Matthew Tomlinson, 39, formerly from Mascot, was arrested in 2016 following a successful career which began as a news cameraman and saw him shift into documentaries and films, culminating in an Emmy nomination during the same year as his arrest.
However, his dramatic fall from grace saw him convicted at trial in 2018 for 22 child abuse offences which included having sex with two underage teen girls over a lengthy period between 2011 and 2015.
The father-of-two was sentenced in May for those offences and he received a minimum term of imprisonment of eight years.
He appeared back in the NSW District Court on Friday to be sentenced for two further offences related to possessing child abuse images and showing one of his victims child abuse material.
He was found guilty of the two offences during a separate trial earlier this year. Judge Gina O’Rourke sentenced him on Friday to an additional two years and six months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 21 months.
That sentence will begin in 2024 – following his current term of imprisonment – and Tomlinson will be eligible for release in late 2025.
Despite the offending, Judge O’Rourke noted Tomlinson had shown no remorse and “tried to place blame on others and on the victim” in lengthy hand written letters to the court.
Tomlinson previously told a court he admitted to having sex with his victims but blamed them for not disclosing their age.
During the sentence for the child porn offences, Judge O’Rourke said he had displayed narcissistic behaviour and appeared to show no consideration of harm caused to his victims.
She also said that Tomlinson claimed to have been physically assaulted in prison and was suffering from anxiety and depressive episodes.
“He says he was subjected to assaults and intimidation because of the media coverage.”
The court heard, prior to his arrest, police raided his Mascot home in 2015 and found a silver Apple laptop.
An encrypted hard drive was located on the laptop and found to contain 38 images of child pornography, with children believed to be as young as 2.
Images were also found depicting sexual images of one of his victims whom he had sex with.
The court heard that Tomlinson had groomed the victim from the age of 13 and took her on trips, picked her up in his Hummer, bought her clothing and gifts and gave her an iPhone to take sexual pictures of herself.
The court also heard that when she was 14 or 15 he had shown her disturbing child pornography.
Judge O’Rourke said he had used his wealth and status to impress and groom the victim, and the offences of possess child abuse material and disseminate child abuse material were “abhorrent”.
His lawyer had claimed during his trial that the child abuse images found on his laptop were planted.
Tomlinson, who showed little emotion during the latest sentence, has filed a notice of intention to appeal conviction with the NSW Supreme Court over his sentence for the 22 child abuse offences.