Mark Stephens busted by son with child abuse images, claimed he ‘didn’t know’ it was illegal
A South Gippsland father has claimed he didn’t know images of naked children were illegal after he was busted with hundreds of child abuse images by his son.
Bass Coast News
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A father and ex-navy officer has plead guilty to possessing hundreds of child abuse images, claiming he “didn’t know it was illegal”.
Mark Stephens, 51, faced the Wonthaggi Magistrate’s Court on Friday where he pleaded guilty to one charge of possessing child abuse material.
The Nyora man was dobbed in by his son after he was using his dad’s computer and came across the images.
His son found the images in February last year before calling Kids’ Helpline to find out what to do.
According to prosecutors, Stephens’ son showed the images to his mother who became angry and accused the son of trying to “ruin his dad’s life”.
Stephens’ son called triple-0 and reported his discovery to police who then arrested Stephens and seized his computer.
Investigations revealed thousands of explicit images, 434 of them being children under 12.
The images included children giving oral sex to a man, posed in sexual poses exposing their genitalia, and some contained more than one child in them.
When interviewed, the pest control worker told police he thought “because [he] could access them [he] thought it was okay”.
He also questioned what was wrong about it, claiming he “liked that stuff”.
Defence told the court Stephens was the sole provider for his wife and two of his three children.
Two of Stephens’ children and his wife submitted letters of support to the court, with an absence of support from the son who found the images.
Stephens has been undergoing a sex offenders treatment program since May.
The Magistrate ordered Stephens be assessed for a community corrections order.
He will return to court later this month.
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