Robert Clohesy: Bendigo man sentenced over accessing child abuse material

A Bendigo man has been sentenced in court after he bought a computer to access child abuse material less than a month after police caught him in the act.

Robert Clohesy was sentenced to 17 months in prison after Police seized electronic devices full of child porn. Picture: Bendigo Law Courts, Zizi Averill

A Bendigo man has been jailed for 17 months after he bought a computer to access child abuse material less than a month after police caught him in the act.

Robert Clohesy, 21, was sentenced in Bendigo County Court on Wednesday after he was found guilty of knowingly possess and access child abuse material.

The court heard police attended the then 20 year old’s property in Bendigo in December 2020.

They seized hard drives, USBs, phones, tablets, memory and SD cards and later found more than 6000 files containing child porn sourced from the dark web and file sharing websites.

Less than three weeks after police had raided his property Clohesy went and bought an Acre laptop before downloading more child abuse material.

Clohesy confessed he had written a story about two boys aged 11 and 12 being involved in sexual relations with each other.

Police found the story in a password protected part of his phone which was originally created in 2017 and last modified in October 2020.

Clohesy also admitted to police the files on his devices, mostly of boys aged 4-15, had been downloaded by him and he was “sexually turned on” by boys aged between 10-15, and had been since he was 14.

Police also found materials of bestiality and infants as young as one on his device.

Judge Frank Gucciardo said any remorse Clohesy had demonstrated throughout the interviews with police were undercut by his undeterrance to access more child porn and his excusing of what he had done wrong.

“I am unsatisfied of his level of remorse, due to his comments, and those of who have assessed him,” Judge Gucciardo said.

Mr Gucciardo also reminded court Clohesy had previously been suspended from social media app Snapchat after he had been caught sending sexual material to young children, at times receiving videos back.

Clohesy was found guilty of accessing and knowingly possessing child porn and was sentenced to 17 months in jail with a non-parole period of 11 months.