Jose Mora-Afonso: Abuse image shame of ex SouthWestNine owner
An eastern suburbs hairdresser and former salon owner was found with a collection of more than a million photos and videos of child abuse material.
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An eastern suburbs salon owner amassed more than a million sickening child abuse images including photos of infants and babies being sexually abused.
Jose Mora-Afonso, who owned hairdressing salon SouthWestNine in Rushcutters Bay until at least early to mid-2018, has pleaded guilty to possessing child abuse material, disseminating child abuse material and two counts of possessing a prohibited drug including cocaine and GHB.
The 40-year-old, who also worked as a sex worker, told police he was handed a hard drive with the images by one of his male escort clients, which he thought contained tax documents.
But the Darlinghurst man went on to send some of the image to others which the crown argued in court was intrinsic and linked to his using the photos for his own sexual gratification.
Crown prosecutor James Ly told the Downing Centre court on Thursday that in a Skype chat in 2016, discovered on the same hard drive as a large portion of the child sexual abuse material, Mora-Afonso and another person allegedly discussed fantasies about children they would want to sexually assaulted.
He then sent the user two photographs, of what he describes as “the 14-year-old” wearing a red shirt and no pants holding his erect penis in his hand, according to court documents.
The court heard he was found in the possession of 826,952 images and 8775 videos, which showed pre-pubescent children involved in a sex act, witnessing a sex act or focused parts of a child’s anatomy.
Police also found 193,538 photos and 717 videos of other child abuse material.
The court heard many of the million or so images included young children under the age of six, infants and babies being sexually abused, as well as being tied down while being sexually assaulted.
According to court documents the photos and videos were strewn across eight of his devices including his mobile phone, his laptop and his iPad, found when police searched his Victoria St home and arrested him in early 2019.
Agreed facts state he was initially apprehended over cocaine and methylamphetamine possession before police seized his phone and found a gallery of sexually-explicit material, including one image of an eight to twelve year-old boy unclothed, on a bed, in a sexually-suggestive pose.
Mora-Afonso appeared small on the Downing Centre District Court television, his slight frame edged towards the bottom of the screen.
He cried and wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket as Judge Peter Zahra noted the Crown’s case to the court, that “The number (of images) indicates the number of victims”.
A psychological report, relied on heavily by his defence, claimed Mora-Afonso was not a paedophile and presented no ongoing sexual attraction towards children.
His defence claimed his possession of the child abuse material resulted purely from maladaptive coping mechanisms related to his own childhood physical assault and the availability of those images while working in the sex industry.
He told a psychologist that when he first saw the images on the hard drive, he became distressed.
At the time of the offending, Mora-Afonso was having sex with a “variety of people” on a nightly basis and was addicted to the drug ICE, according to his defence.
He pleaded guilty in December last year to possessing child abuse material, disseminating child abuse material and two counts of possessing a prohibited drug including cocaine and GHB.
Judge Peter Zahra will hand down his sentence on August 2.