Justin Blair Mitchell pleads guilty to possessing child abuse material

The lawyer for a man found with thousands of horrific child abuse files has told a court his client had fallen down a “rabbit hole” because he wanted to be a vigilante.

Justin Blair Mitchell leaving Geelong Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

A Geelong man collected almost 6000 child abuse files because he wanted to be a “vigilante”, a court has heard.

Justin Blair Mitchell, 50, appeared in Geelong Magistrates Court on Tuesday and pleaded guilty to charges including possessing ice, driving while disqualified and two counts of knowingly possessing child abuse material (CAM).

Police prosecutor Senior Constable Laura Wood told the court that Mitchell’s home was raided by officers from Geelong’s Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team (SOCIT) on January 30, 2023.

Among the items police seized was a laptop and iPhone that held a total of 5953 images and videos containing child abuse material, including 2988 deemed category one.

Category one files depict real children under the age of 13.

The laptop contained 5316 child abuse files, while a further 637 files were found on the phone.

Mitchell gave a no-comment interview in December 2023 and the next month police found a ziplock bag of meth in his car.

Mitchell’s lawyer, Jonathon Brancato, told the court his client understood the gravity of the charges.

Mr Brancato told the court Mitchell had a “less than idyllic childhood” and was the victim of sexual abuse himself at a young age.

Mitchell had sought the material out, Mr Brancato said, because he was “curious to see what other kids suffered”.

It became a “rabbit hole”, the court was told, and “the more he looked, the more he dug deeper”.

Mitchell wanted to be a vigilante and wanted to “make contact with the people uploading (the material) and confront them about it”, the court heard.

Mr Brancato said Mitchell, who now resides with his elderly parents, did not have “sexual tendencies” towards children, and had not looked at child abuse material since the raid.

He had since sought mental health treatment and stopped using illicit drugs, the court heard.

Mr Brancato read aloud a note Mitchell had written to the court, apologising to the children in the material.

“I am so sorry to have your images and videos on my computer … I’ve been able to see every image, every second of every video is a real human,” Mitchell wrote.

Both the prosecution and magistrate Simon Guthrie were sceptical of Mitchell’s desire to be a vigilante.

Senior Constable Wood said it seemed “excessive” that he needed the amount of files he had, if that was his purpose.

Child abuse material was a “real plague on society” Mr Guthrie said, which took “a bit of skill, a bit of planning” to access.

“It is appalling, repugnant … I can’t begin to think of the other words to describe this type of offending,” he said.

Mitchell was convicted and placed on a 24-month community corrections order (CCO).
He was also fined $1000 and must register as a sex offender for 15 years.

Originally published as Justin Blair Mitchell pleads guilty to possessing child abuse material