Long Ngoc Huynh guilty on online child abuse video charges, fined $5000 but avoids jail

A “bored” Meadow Heights father-of-two spent his evenings watching vile child abuse on the family computer because he was “curious”, a court has heard.

A “bored” Meadow Heights father-of-two spent his evenings watching child exploitation videos on the family computer after becoming “curious” and looking around a seedy corner of the internet, a court has heard.

Long Ngoc Huynh, 43, faced the Broadmeadows Magistrates’ Court on Thursday where he pleaded guilty to accessing and possessing more than 30 hours of sexualised videos of young girls.

Police in 2019 raided Huynh’s house while his wife and teenage children were home, and seized his computer, later finding the stash of videos, which Huynh said he found on a dark website.

In an interview with police, Huynh admitted to looking at the videos “out of curiosity” and because he was “bored”.

He admitted he knew the videos were “a bit illegal”.

Long Ngoc Huynh was fined $5000 at the Broadmeadows Magistrates' Court. Picture: Ellen Smith

Huynh, a storeman, had no criminal record and defence lawyer George Douglas described him as a hardworking father of two, whose refugee family had worked hard to ensure he had a good education.

Mr Douglas said only Huynh’s wife of more than 20 years and two teenage children knew about his legal troubles, and said his client had not told his extended family out of shame.

Magistrate Olivia Trumble said offences like Huynh’s were “always serious”.

Prosecutors argued Huynh should have been jailed to send a message to other would-be offenders, amid a “growing problem” of child abuse and child exploitation material online.

“The victims of these offences are children, they are real people, they experience real exploitation,” a police prosecutor said.

Mr Douglas said Huynh should not go to jail because his case had been so delayed through the courts, and because he didn’t have a collection of “thousands” of illegal videos, as some offenders do.

He also said Huynh was “struggling along” financially, with a low paying job at a caravan business, and a mortgage to pay.

Ms Trumble spared Huynh from jail, and instead fined him $5000, with conviction in what she described as a “merciful disposition”.

He will also be registered as a sex offender.