Teenage boy sentenced in Southport District Court after pleading guilty to possessing and distributing child exploitation material

The reason why a teenage boy, busted with hundreds of child sex abuse images and videos, shared the vile material has been revealed in court.

A boy began sharing child exploitation material on social media app Snapchat so he could access an internet chatroom, a court was told.

Police raided the boy’s home after an IP address linked to the teen was discovered uploading abuse material to an internet drop box. Police discovered content on two phones and a laptop, including 269 images and 46 videos.

A boy has been sentenced to probation for possessing and sharing child abuse material.

The boy pleaded guilty on Tuesday in the Southport District Court to possessing and distributing child exploitation material. He was aged 16 and 17 at the time of the offending, but is now 18.

His identity cannot be revealed for legal reasons.

A log of Snapchat messages showed the boy sent material, including 74 images and drop box links, to another user on five occasions between May 26, 2020 and January 6, 2021.

The boy made admissions to police and told them he began searching for the material when he discovered the encrypted chat app Discord.

It required him to share the material in order to access the chatroom, the court was told.

Judge Katherine McGinness sentenced the boy to 18 months’ probation and opted against recording a conviction.

“It’s so important that you don’t do anything like this again. As an adult you would be facing a prison term. You would be going down there (to custody),” she said. “I hope you realise, and I think you do now, that those images and videos had young children who were being sexually assaulted. I don’t know if you can even imagine how their lives would have been affected by that.”

Lawyer Michael McMillan said of his client: “He’s gone a long way to admitting almost every element of both of the offences that were preferred against him.”

He said a psychological report attributed his client’s offending to his youth and immaturity, and the risk of reoffending was low.

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