Point Cook IT sicko Robin Smith pleads guilty to child sex crimes, producing child abuse material
A Melbourne sex predator produced AI child abuse material and prowled an online chat site now under the watch of anti-pedophile cops.
Wyndham Leader
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A Melbourne dad and volunteer whose kids are involved at local footy clubs used artificial intelligence to produce vile child abuse material.
Robin Smith, 48, was sentenced at the County Court on Thursday to a 13-month jail term after pleading guilty to producing and transmitting child abuse.
Smith was caught in a police sting after he used online site ‘Chatiw’ to prowl for fuel for his vile child sex fantasies.
Smith, of Point Cook, chatted with a covert cop who posed as ‘Bianca’ via Chatiw.
Bianca pretended to be the mother of a six-year-old girl named “Maddy”.
Smith chatted with the cop on Chatiw and then Google Chats between March and May last year.
The court heard Smith sent vile messages to the undercover cop which discussed the sexual acts he wanted to perform on the made up daughter.
Smith also discussed renting an Airbnb with a hot tub in Mornington where he would “play a game with Maddy”.
Smith, an IT worker, who retained the support of his wife, also suggested the covert cop could teach the child to perform sex acts.
Police raided Smith’s family home in August last year and seized a computer which contained 793 child abuse material images.
A police investigation revealed Smith had used an AI software program called “Stable Diffusion” to create the sexualised images of children between September 2022 and May last year.
Smith told a psychologist he felt like he was “playing a game in a make believe world” where he felt “liberated from social inhibitions” and could “explore sexual thoughts and fantasies”.
The court heard Smith worked at a small local IT business for 15 years but had not told his employer about his vile offending.
Smith and his wife – who has stood by him throughout – are active volunteers in the community.
The couple’s two teenage children are involved in local footy clubs, the court heard.
“While use of artificial intelligence in the production of child abuse material was in its relative infancy … it is fast proliferating,” Judge Kate Hawkins said.
Judge Hawkins said despite no real children being harmed by Smith’s production of abuse images using AI, any child exploitation material “tends to normalise exploitative sexual activity involving children”.
“It serves to fuel the demand for such material and may tend to encourage viewers to take a step further and move from the fictitious to the real world and harm real children,” she said.
Judge Hawkins said Smith was a clear example, graduating from producing AI images to grooming a real live subject for vile sex acts with a mother and her young child.
Smith was handed a 13-month jail term but will be released on a good behaviour bond after serving six months.
Smith was also convicted and made a registered sex offender for 15 years.
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