Gippsland plumber/motocross star Jesse Mackintosh pleads guilty to child abuse material charges

A Gippsland plumber who was once a rising motocross star hunted children via social media for his sordid pedophile needs.

A Gippsland plumber who posed as a teenage boy on social media to prey on young victims and force them to send vile sexual material has been jailed.

Jesse Mackintosh, 23, was sentenced in the County Court on Thursday to a minimum two-year jail term after pleading guilty to 42 child sex offence offences.

Mackintosh, who pleaded guilty to various solicit and transmit child abuse material charges, committed his grubby offending between July 2017 and June 2021.

The grub posed as a teenage boy ‘Dylon Harrington’ and other online aliases to procure and solicit vile material from children via Instagram and Snapchat.

Mackintosh, of Moe, used five separate social media accounts to commit his horrid offending against boys and girls – the youngest victim just eight years old.

Mackintosh, who also pleaded guilty to procure person under 16, pressured victims to send sexually explicit photos.

When the victims hesitated or refused, Mackintosh used threatening language or harassed the children to send photos or videos of themselves on multiple occasions.

Among the most shocking of the messages, Mackintosh offered money to an underage girl to send a photo of her touching her 8-year-old brother’s penis.

When the girl refused, he threatened to post photos of her brother’s penis on his Instagram story.

He also threatened to hurt another child’s family if she didn’t unblock him on social media after he asked her to send photos of her breasts.

He also sent child pornography images to the underage victims, some of which were categorised as serious child abuse material.

Mackintosh had been accessing child pornography since he was 18 years old, swapping hundreds of explicit images and videos through a Snapchat group ‘Freaky Teens’.

These included images of pre-pubescent girls and other children performing lewd sexual acts.

Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team members took Mackintosh down in June 2021.

Mackintosh told investigators he made up ‘Dylon Harro’ so he “could follow people and post stuff and no one would know who he was”.

Mackintosh also denied being “sexually attracted to children”.

Investigators also asked Mackintosh why he would ask “11 and 12 year olds for naked pictures”.

“I wouldn’t,” Mackintosh said.

“I surely wouldn’t have known.”

A psychological evaluation of Mackintosh revealed that he had a deviant sexual disorder at the time of his offending and was addicted to child pornography.

Mackintosh was also diagnosed with pedophilia, the court was told.

The court heard Mackintosh worked as an apprentice plumber in regional Victoria and was on the path to become a state champion in motocross sports as a child.

The fiend had hopes of one-day becoming a professional motocross rider but those dreams have since been cut to bits.

Judge Peter Lauritsen said Mackintosh’s offending had the “potential” to “cause much harm to the victims” and would “adversely” affect their futures.

Mackintosh, who was made a registered sex offender for life, was jailed for a maximum four years.

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