Child porn: Melbourne’s most disgusting convicted criminals named and shamed
They were teachers, university marketing officers and volunteer firefighters. But outside of their jobs, these Melbourne men maintained disgusting child porn collections, and were eventually busted by authorities. See the dubious collection of crooks.
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A landscaper, IT geek and a university marketing officer are among the sicking rollcall of sex offenders exposed and punished for their child porn collections.
Along with maintaining disturbing stashes of images, videos and other content featuring minors, some of these deprave crooks have also been busted grooming young children for sex online.
The offenders have been given jail sentences, others face deportation, and most have also been put on Victoria’s sex offender register.
Here’s a list of Melbourne sex offenders who have been caught out for their grubby behaviour during the past five years.
ROSEBUD
Drummond was already a convicted sex offender after he downloaded a 49-minute video involving abuse of a girl aged between three and five in 2015.
But in November 2018, the 33-year-old was found to have breached the register’s conditions after he failed to tell police he was living with a woman and her young son.
He pleaded guilty in the Frankston Magistrates’ Court in September 2019 where he received a 12-month community corrections order involving 150 hours of unpaid work.
Drummond is on the sex offender register for his previous offending until 2023.
ORIGINALLY FROM UK
A computer technician discovered images of girls as young as six years engaged in sexual acts on this elderly UK citizen’s laptop when he took it in for repairs.
The 76-year-old, who had lived in Australia since he was 23, was given a two-year community corrections order after he pleaded guilty to possessing child porn in January 2018.
The Department Of Home Affairs decided to cancel his visa and Strachan appealed the decision.
In March 2020, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal upheld the department’s decision to send him back to the UK, with senior member Donald Morris stating the images were of “a highly offensive nature”.
“The number of child abuse images the applicant downloaded was not a large number, (but) the images were of a highly offensive nature and several of them involved child exploitation at the very worst end of the scale,” Mr Morris said.
BRENDAN COHEN
HAWTHORN
Cohen was banned from teaching in February 2018 after he was found guilty of “upskirting” at two schools he worked at.
The 52-year-old covertly filmed up the skirts of students at Hawthorn’s Bialik College and Burwood’s Mount Scopus Memorial College between 2015 and 2017.
He then created child pornography by photoshopping children’s faces onto adult images.
The court heard he also targeted students’ mothers by secretly filming them during parent-teacher interviews.
A Bialik College staffer tipped off police when they found material on Cohen’s hard drive and authorities later found he possessed more than 80 upskirting films.
Cohen was sentenced to five months’ jail but appealed his sentence.
MITCHAM
This serial child porn pest has committed a string of offences, beginning back in 2006 when he hid images of naked boys and girls in department stores in Melbourne’s east.
Palliser planted more than 450 pictures with the words ‘Merry Christmas’ attached among toys, clothing and other items at stores at Forest Hill Chase, Doncaster, Eastland and Westfield Knox in 2006.
A court heard he’d planted them for adult men to find but instead, staff and customers as young as 10 found his dirty images.
He was given a one-year suspended jail sentence and put on a two-year good behaviour bond in 2017.
Then, in 2015, the former IT worker was found guilty of another sick porn campaign – this time creating a computer virus that posted child porn images on students’ Facebook pages.
He was jailed for six years and ordered to serve a minimum of four years for his offending.
CARLTON
Ooi, a former landscaper who worked on projects for the State Government and several Melbourne councils, had his devious acts uncovered in November 2019.
He had been communicating with an 11-year-old girl from Florida in the US and grooming her for sex with images and videos he sent through Snapchat and Google hangouts.
The victim’s mother found the material and alerted US authorities, who then tipped off local investigators who raided his Cardigan St home.
During the raid they seized his phone and hard drive which contained nearly 400 child abuse images including material classified as bestiality, sadism, hentai or animation.
He pleaded guilty in the County Court to procuring a child to engage in sexual activity outside of Australia and other offences, and was jailed for a maximum three years and eight months.
Judge Michael McInerney also put him on the sex offender register for life and the Malaysian citizen is likely to be deported once his sentence has been served.
CAULFIELD
This former Melbourne Open Universities marketing officer and US citizen was tipped off by the FBI to local authorities for sharing child pornography through social media app KiK.
Gibbs’ Caulfield home was raided on August 7, 2019, where authorities seized his phone and a pair of Star Wars boxer shorts.
Authorities examined his phone and found he’d shared vile videos and images to dozens of other KiK users, as well as lewd messages.
His phone also had 383 images and videos depicting penetration, sadism, humiliation and torture, as well as anime or cartoons depicting child pornography.
The court heard he had a pedophilic disorder and a “longstanding addiction to child pornography” which he had sought treatment for, along with support from an anonymous group.
He pleaded guilty to multiple child sexual abuse charges, and was jailed for a maximum of three years and four months.
Gibbs was also placed on the sex offender register for life and will be deported to the US after his sentence is completed.
PAKENHAM
This former Metro Trains inspector and CFA volunteer was busted running a Tumblr blog with vile sex images of children.
Australian Federal Police uncovered the blog — which contained 44 images and videos — and found it was linked to Harris’ IP address and other personal information.
His Pakenham home was raided in June 2019 and officers found an iPad containing images and videos, some of bestiality and incest.
The device’s search history also included searches for naked children performing sex acts and incest, as well as tips for how to adopt children from Thailand.
The 47-year-old pleaded guilty in the County Court in April 2020 to possessing child pornography and child abuse material.
He was later jailed for six months and forced to serve a two-year community corrections order.
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