Denham Varas-Curl aka musician Tamazhi allegedly caught with child abuse material
A JMC Academy student and budding muso with songs on Triple J Unearthed allegedly amassed a vile collection of child abuse material.
Outer East
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An aspiring songwriter from a strict Jehovah’s Witness family who shared his “mellow tracks” on Triple J unearthed allegedly had a child abuse material collection featuring minors as young as five.
Upper Ferntree Gully’s Denham Varas-Curl, 22, appeared in Ringwood Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday for a mention hearing after being charged by police in July 2021.
His defence lawyer, George Balot, asked for a sentencing indication after his client allegedly began accessing the “depraved and abhorrent” content when he was 18.
The court heard Mr Varas-Curl allegedly uploaded 61 child abuse material files to his Dropbox after accessing them through filesharing platform mega.nz in 2019.
Mr Varas-Curl began using the platform when he was 13 and used aliases linked to anime series Dragon Ball Z to communicate with strangers.
Officers visited Mr Varas-Curl’s home on July 28, 2021 and arrested him, with a search allegedly finding the child abuse material on his laptop and a portable hard drive.
Nineteen videos and one image featuring girls aged 12 and under were allegedly assessed following the raid and categorised by Interpol.
The vile content uncovered on his devices included a video allegedly featuring a naked girl aged five to six years being penetrated by a man, before she performed oral sex on the man.
Others allegedly involved the minors exposing genitalia, masturbating and using sex toys or having them used on them.
Mr Varas-Curl allegedly told police he went back to accessing the material when he turned 18 after he became depressed following a relationship break-up, seeking out links and watching videos for a month.
He said he contemplated self-reporting to police but didn’t have the guts to go through with it, and he didn’t “enjoy or get anything from watching” the material.
The court heard Mr Varas-Curl quit his job in sales last year to enrol in a songwriting course at the JMC Academy, and was living off Centrelink.
In 2020, he uploaded and shared his music on Triple J Unearthed under the artist name Tamazhi, where he told fans he made “mellow tracks featuring elements of different genres, from lo-fi hip hop, indie rock and classical to acoustic and house”.
His social media pages stated: “I just wanna capture the earth and my emotions in all forms of media.”
Mr Balot told the court his client came from a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses with “a very strict upbringing” and was bullied at school.
He said his client had seen a psychologist for five sessions, and also a sexologist for two sessions, but stopped as he couldn’t afford the ongoing costs.
Magistrate Tony Parsons ordered Mr Varas-Curl be assessed for a community corrections order on March 9, taking into account his mental health.
The matter will return to the court on March 17.
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