Melbourne dad fronts court over sharing child abuse material

A former sales technician blamed his addiciton to pornography and his use of nitrate for sharing child abuse material with an international pedo ring.

Mark Dekleuver has pleaded guilty to charges relating to sharing of child abuse material with an international pedo ring and fantasised about “chocking” and “violently raping” a child.

A former sales technician with a major international company who shared child abuse material with an international pedo ring and fantasised about “choking” and “violently raping” a child has partly blamed his offending on porn addiction and consumption of nitrate.

Mark Dekleuver, 44, pleaded guilty in the County Court on Thursday to 13 charges including those in relation to possessing and transmitting child abuse material. Investigators found 128 images and 28 videos in electronic devices.

Dekleuver appeared via video link from prison and listed his occupation as student.

Mark Dekleuver uploaded and shared child abuse material to a Wickr chat group

A “respected” former BASF sales technician, Dekleuver, formerly of Lang Lang in Melbourne’s southeast, uploaded and shared the material to a Wickr chat group. He also shared “explicit” messages to Wickr chat group ‘at the brink’ which described in detail how he wanted to violently and brutally rape a child.

The Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team members received a tip-off before moving in and arresting Dekleuver in December 2022.

He told investigators he had a few Wickr Pro accounts and that there were moments he knew his actions were wrong and deleted everything but then a couple of months later he would re-download and re-activate them.

His lawyer Stephanie Joosten said threats from online groups was another contributing factor to his offending.

Dekleuver was caught up in “mind games” between individuals who requested specific images to be provided and what happened if he didn’t, she submitted.

It was also revealed Dekleuver had other sexual interests and was into cross-dressing which he was “very afraid” to talk about not knowing how people would judge him.

Investigators also found videos depicting child abuse material in Mark Dekleuver’s cellphone.

However, Ms Joosten said there was never going to be a satisfactory explanation that absolved Dekleuver from his actions.

Dekleuver’s father wrote a letter to the County Court that outlined how his son felt about his actions and said his son expressed disgust at his behaviour and wanted to kill himself.

His father also gave evidence in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court a year ago when Dekleuver unsuccessfully applied for bail.

At the time, police expressed fears that if Dekleuver was released on bail he may delete content from his MEGA Cloud account.

Dekleuver’s Wickr group was subjected to an international investigation at the time of his arrest.

He was and was remanded in custody to appear on April 30 for a plea hearing.