Wantirna South teen pleads guilty to possessing child abuse material on his phone

A Wantirna South teen — who was caught with child abuse material — has claimed he started accessing the material due to the stress from his final exams.

Callum Forster pleaded guilty on Wednesday. Picture: Supplied.

A Wantirna South teen has narrowly avoided jail — or even a conviction — after he was caught with hundreds of images and videos containing child abuse material.

Callum Forster, 19, pleaded guilty to one charge of knowingly possessing child abuse material in the Ringwood Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.

Police found two mobile phones belonging to Forster during a search warrant on the teen’s home in June last year.

On the phones they found more than 300 images and videos containing child abuse material,

some of which was of men having sex with children under the age of 13.

When he was arrested and interviewed, Forster made “full admissions” to police officers about the content of his phone.

He told police he first accessed the material in the lead up to his stressful final school exams.

Forster, who wore a grey suit and a blue tie in court, was sentenced to a 18 month community corrections order without conviction.

Magistrate Jason Ong said he was demonstrating “some leniency” with his sentence due to the considerable mental health treatment Forster received after his arrest.

During the order, Forster will be supervised and will have to undergo 120 hours of unpaid community work as well as mental health treatments.

He will be listed on the sex offenders registry for eight years.