Aussie man’s CV hides sickening secret
A sickening secret in an Aussie’s LinkedIn profile has been uncovered.
A convicted child sex offender has gone to great lengths to disguise his almost eight-year prison term, claiming he spent that time working on a farm as a groundskeeper in a shocking LinkedIn profile.
The man was last sentenced in 2017 after he admitted to police he had looked into strangers’ windows, “perved” on people and taken images — with some victims as young as 15 — for his own “sick gratification”. Police also uncovered more than 450,000 child pornography images and videos.
He also went through strangers’ letters in order to find them on Facebook and chose “pretty victims” to stalk, a Victorian court heard.
Steven Douglas Burke was sentenced to eight years in prison in the County Court of Victoria after he pleaded guilty to 14 charges including making child pornography, accessing child abuse material and child pornography, as well as stalking and loitering in a school.
On his LinkedIn profile Burke listed his role as horticulture and groundskeeper at Beaufort Farm between May 2016 and March this year.
However, this is actually a prison farm called HM Prison Langi Kal Kal.
Burke’s offenses included a total of almost 8000 child pornography files on devices initially seized — but this jumped to more than 450,000 after further investigations – with the court hearing Burke used the dark net to access the material and encrypted files to make detection difficult.
Burke was released earlier this year from prison and his LinkedIn profile revealed he had worked for a company called Game Traffic & Contracting as a traffic controller.
Game is a commercial business with its profits funding Worktrainers, a registered charity which supports local youth to remain in school. It has a presence in 15 secondary schools in northern Victorian.
Worktrainers’ is listed as supporting youth transition into employment for those aged 15 to 25, on the Australian government’s registered charities website.
Game Traffic and Contracting CEO Josh Hudson said Burke had worked four shifts as a traffic controller at the company over a three-week period between 18 July and 2 August and no longer works with the organisation.
“We were not aware of his criminal history at the time of his employment. His casual role in traffic management had nothing to do with our youth program which is run by a separate division with no staff crossover,” he said.
“All staff working in youth programs are all vetted and have Working with Children and National Police checks. We are reviewing our hiring practices for irregular casual field staff in Game to seek to prevent this issue arising in future.
“We have now changed our procedure to complete national police checks on all irregular casual field staff.”
Worktrainers had reported $32 million in revenue on the Australian charities and not for profits commission website, its records from January this year showed. It then spent $29 million on expenses with 79 per cent spent going towards employee expenses.
Burke’s offenses
Australian Federal Police initially charged Burke with the child pornography crimes after seizing 10 electronic devices from his home in December 2015.
Burke had previously been imprisoned for possessing and making child pornography.
Police investigating later made the shocking discovery of photos and videos of teenage girls and women who were naked and in different stages of undress in their bedrooms on the devices.
Burke’s victims were as young as 15. He also entered the grounds of a Melbourne school’s boarding house and took 115 photographs of a 17-year-old female victim and was nearly detected a number of times by security who chased him away.
He also obtained details of where a customer lived via his work after selling her a computer and planned to stalk her. Instead he went on to take 544 photos of her two teenage daughters.
Other videos showed adult women in their bedrooms dressed only in a towel, naked, and in various stages of undress. Some victims had over 100 images taken of them.
One victim described seeing the shadow of a man and being “fearful and apprehensive” and Burke admitted to police he could have been to the address up to 50 times in the past six months of the offending.
He was again arrested in May 2016 and charged with eight counts of stalking. Police found him in possession of a USB stick which contained child exploitation material that had violated his bail conditions. The police found in his possession a total of 459,700 child pornography files.
A sample of the more than 450,000 child exploitation files was provided to the judge. He found they involved children performing sexual acts on each other and on adults, bestiality, and disturbing animated images of children with the “depths of depravity” beyond belief, Judge Christopher Ryan said.
22 convictions in 15 years
He noted that between May 2000 and January 2015, Burke had accumulated 22 convictions or findings of guilt from eight court appearances which included knowingly possessing child pornography, making or producing child pornography and stalking.
From September 2009, he had been subject to the provisions of the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004 for a period of 15 years.
One woman who had been stalked told the court in a victim impact statement she experienced anxiety and nightmares and felt “unclean” with Burke’s actions having a “profound adverse impact” on her, the judge found.
Burke told a psychologist he was adopted and sexually abused by a local Anglican minister when he was aged between 12 and 14 years.
The psychologist noted Burke had engaged with the sex offender program in 2003 and 2004 but it “appears to have had little or no effect on” him.
The psychologist’s opinion was that Burke was at “high risk of sexual reoffending” and that he had difficulty empathising with his victims because they appeared to be merely images on a computer screen.
Justice Ryan told Burke at sentencing that the “community must be protected from you” and he regarded his prospects for rehabilitation as “bleak”.
“It must never be forgotten that every child who appears within an image of child pornography is a victim. Possessing and making child pornography are not victimless crimes,” he said in his judgement.
The judge sentenced him to a non-parole period of six years and said Burke would be on the sex offenders’ register for life.
News.com.au contacted Burke for comment.
sarah.sharples@news.com.au
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