Narara: Michael John Astill pleads guilty to accessing child abuse material
A grandfather told police child abuse material “popped up” from time to time while he was searching for “legal” pornography to treat his erectile dysfunction, a court has heard.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A Central Coast grandfather told police child abuse material “popped up” from time to time while he was searching for “legal” pornography to treat his erectile dysfunction, a court has heard.
But a search of his electronic devices including a personal computer found it was far less accidental than he would have officers believe, having used search terms such as “pre-teen hardcore” and ‘sweet 7yo torrent” on various websites promoting “little daddy girls” and “jail bait”.
Michael John Astill, 71, faced Gosford Local Court on Friday, May 2, where he pleaded guilty to three counts of using a carriage service to access child abuse material and two further counts were withdrawn and dismissed.
An agreed set of facts states police attended his Gilda Dr address on April 16 last year to conduct a search warrant and asked him about child abuse material.
“The offender told police that he may have accidentally accessed child abuse material while searching for adult pornography ... from which he would stream and download pornographic material in an attempt to assist with his erectile dysfunction,” the facts state.
He said he searched “legal teenage” when child abuse material appeared on his screen.
“Yeah, popped up, I’ll admit I have watched it but I’ve always deleted it, scrapped it, shredded it,” he said.
He told police he used AVG antivirus software to “shred” any pornography because he didn’t want children to see it.
Police returned to the house a few hours later and took Astill to Gosford Hospital for a mental health assessment.
A review of five of his devices found 6494 files constituting child abuse material but only about 100 files were able to be recovered.
The review found he accessed some of the material from a peer-to-peer site to search “pthc”, which stands for pre-teen hardcore, the facts state.
He also did a search for “sweet 7yo torrent” and visited websites promoted as “little daddy girls” and “jail bait”.
He was arrested in July last year but declined to be interviewed.
He will face Gosford District Court on June 5 to fix a sentence date.
More Coverage
Originally published as Narara: Michael John Astill pleads guilty to accessing child abuse material
Grandmother arrested after two boys found dead in NSW home
A tragedy is unfolding in Coonabarabran after a 66-year-old woman was arrested following the discovery of two deceased children aged six and seven.
Read more
Couple charged after alleged gun-firing footage emerges
A couple has been charged after shots were allegedly fired from a car three times – including once where footage, posted on social media, allegedly shows a shotgun being fired from a moving vehicle.
Read more