Howard Laing-Smith fronts court over child abuse material

A deviant Melbourne truckie on interstate runs plied a poor 13-year-old girl and her adult sister in The Philippines with cash in exchange for child abuse material.

Melbourne truckie Howard Laing-Smith has been jailed for paying children in The Philippines to pose naked during video chats and supply him with child abuse material.

A socially isolated Melbourne truckie doing interstate runs paid a woman in The Philippines and her teenage sister thousands of dollars in exchange for child abuse material.

Howard Laing-Smith, 52, was nabbed in Ballarat on September 10, 2021 and police discovered on his iPhone a lengthy conversation he had on Facebook Messenger with a woman in The Philippines and a child abuse image of her two-year-old daughter.

After she sent him the image, he replied “I am hard”.

Laing-Smith pleaded guilty to charges of possessing or controlling child abuse material, using a carriage service to access child abuse material, causing a child to engage in sexual activity and using a carriage service to cause child abuse material to be transmitted to himself.

He was sentenced in the County Court on Tuesday to five years’ imprisonment and ordered to serve three years and three months before he’s eligible for parole.

Melbourne truckie Howard Laing-Smith has been jailed for at least three years and three months for soliciting child abuse material.

Laing-Smith’s iPhone and laptop contained 146 child abuse files that consisted of 117 images and 29 videos of females aged from infants to pubescent teenagers, with the majority of files

depicting Asian children.

There were a small number of child abuse videos depicting pre-pubescent boys in poses that ranged from sexualised poses and masturbation to penetrative sexual intercourse with adults.

Laing-Smith told police he regularly sent a woman in The Philippines sums of money between $80 and $400 and estimated that he had sent a total of $7000 to $8000.

He sent her teenage sister, who referred to Laing-Smith as “daddy” $457 that she used to buy stuff such as a mobile phone in exchange for her sending nude videos and photos of her and other children.

Asked whether there would be any conversations where child abuse material was sent

or received, he said he had no idea.

Laing-Smith confirmed he got sent child abuse material that he deleted but said he had no idea who the senders were.

Judge Peter Lauritsen said Laing-Smith committed most of the offences while he was driving interstate during Covid restrictions and that those long trips led to him being socially isolated.

“The internet gives you anonymity which makes detection hard. These are offences committed electronically and almost invariably in private out of sight of others,’’ he said.

“The difficulty in detecting these offences emphasises the need for general deterrence.”