Michael Taylor, 37, sentenced to five years six months jail for sharing child exploitation material

A former NT land council ranger used a fake Facebook account to disseminate images of vulnerable children being abused. Find out what happened in court.

Michael Taylor, 37. Picture: Facebook

An Alice Springs man caught with 111 indecent files of children – which he shared online where they were downloaded thousands of times – also acted on his perverted interest in children by indecently dealing with a child under the age of 16, a court has heard.

Michael Taylor, 37, was sentenced to a total of five years and six months prison by Justice John Burns in the Darwin Supreme Court on October 16 after he pleaded guilty to four charges relating to sharing and possessing child exploitation material.

They included using a carriage to transmit child abuse material, possessing child abuse material, and two counts of using an electronic device in contravention to the Commonwealth Criminal Code.

Michael Taylor.

Taylor’s offending took place from August to December 2021, with police raiding his Alice Springs home December 17, 2021, where he was arrested, the court heard.

Justice John Burns said Taylor was in possession of 111 child abuse material files which “depicted pubescent and pre-pubescent females posing naked and alone, and children engaging in sexual activity with adults”.

Taylor, using a Facebook account bearing a woman’s name, shared some of the material online through the social media platform to seven people, Justice Burns said.

Other material was uploaded to cloud storage site pCloud, where Taylor shared five separate folders containing a total of 23 child exploitation files, Justice Burns said.

One of the folders was downloaded 1132 times after Taylor shared the link, Justice Burns said.

“The images … [show] a significant number of Aboriginal children ranging in age from about eight to 10 years through to 16 years of age,” Justice Burns said.

“While the child abuse material is not the most depraved child abuse material, the material which [Taylor] made available to others was made using vulnerable Aboriginal children.

“I do note, however, there is no suggestion that [Taylor was] involved in the making of that material.”

Supreme Court Justice John Burns. Picture: File

Taylor was employed as a ranger with the Central Land Council, however, lost his job with the organisation due to the conflict with his bail conditions on the matter in 2022.

On November 11, 2022, while on bail for the child abuse material, Taylor was hit with an unrelated charge of indecent dealing with a child under 16 years.

He was sentenced to 18 months’ prison on June 27 this year for that offending.

Justice Burns told the court of Taylor’s upbringing.

He said Taylor’s father had died when he was aged 12, and the defendant started drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana after.

A report prepared by psychologist Vanessa Edwige said Taylor suffered from a “mental health impairment” at the time of offending, Justice Burns said.

Taylor also met “the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder”.

Justice Burns sentenced Taylor to five years and six months prison.

Taylor’s sentence for his indecent dealing with a child would have expired May 10 this year, with Justice Burns backdating sentencing for his child exploitation material offending to February 29 this year.

He was given a non-parole period of two years and nine months, backdated to February 29 to take into account Taylor’s prior sentence.

He will be eligible for parole in November 2026.

Originally published as Michael Taylor, 37, sentenced to five years six months jail for sharing child exploitation material