Jacob Keele fronts court over child abuse material

A Melbourne man paid under-aged girls including one who needed money to fund her ice addiction for their nude images and threatened to leak them if they refused to supply him more.

Jacob Keele has gone to jail for soliciting nude pictures and videos of females between the ages of 14 and 17 online in exchange for cash.

A young man who paid under-aged girls for nudes and threatened to leak the images if they didn’t supply him with more has been sent to jail despite his fragile mental health, a court has heard.

Jacob Charles Keele, 22, fronted the County Court for sentencing on Wednesday after pleading guilty last week to eight charges of using a carriage service to transmit child abuse material to himself and single charges of soliciting and possessing CAM and using a carriage service to harass.

Keele was sentenced to 33 months’ imprisonment but would be released on a recognisance release order after serving 15 months.

The court heard that he paid a number of girls aged between 14 and 17, including an ice addict and another who needed money, cash in exchange for graphic images for nearly two years before officers from the Australian Federal Police Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team pounced on him in Boronia on July 19, 2023.

Jacob Keele harassed under-aged girls to supply him with nudes in exchange for money.

After searching Keel’s car and home, police found 142 videos and 116 images of child abuse material from three iPhones and messages, mostly on Snapchat.

He initially sent $10 to his victims to prove that he was genuine before they sent him nudes in poses he requested.

In one case, a 16-year-old girl asked him for money to buy drugs and Steele said he’d pay her if she sent her nudes. She sent them and was paid “in the hundreds”.

The court heard that she felt like a goddess after Keele told her how pretty and gorgeous she looked.

Keel threatened to leak sexualised images of a victim if she didn’t forward him more nudes, even after she refused to send more images as she was menstruating.

She begged him not to expose her and said she was having a panic attack. Keele demanded further explicit material, saying “Give me a good show rn and I won’t”.

When she said she was on her period, Keele replied “I don’t care though”.

Judge Fiona Todd said his victims may have appeared to be sophisticated online operators but they were vulnerable, naive and very young.

“If there ever was any community tolerance for online conduct of this kind, it’s well and truly exhausted now. You turned to these girls out of loneliness, feelings of inadequacy but also because they were beautiful,’’ she said.

“Your offending was more serious by reason of the fact that you paid for the images, you took advantage of your young victims’ susceptibility and offered them small sums of money.

The fact that his victims appeared to be willing participants didn’t reduce his culpability, the judge said.

She said despite a psychological report that stated Keele’s mental health and depression would worsen in a prison environment, deterrence and denunciation were needed to protect the community against such behaviour.