Former NT police officer Edgar Maxwell Hayden pleads guilty to child porn offences

A TERRITORY cop who was sacked when he was busted with a stash of child porn will spend the next two months behind bars

Edgar Maxwell Hayden leaves the NT Supreme Court on Friday, after pleading guilty to accessing, possessing and making available child pornography.

A TERRITORY cop who was sacked when he was busted with a stash of child porn will spend the next two months behind bars.

Edgar Maxwell Hayden, 47, yesterday pleaded guilty to three child porn offences stemming from federal police investigations in July and August last year, which uncovered more than 12,000 depraved images on his computer, mostly showing girls between six and 14. A psychiatric report tendered in court said Hayden — who served more than a decade in NT Police — felt “shame and embarrassment” over his fall from grace.

Hayden told his psychiatrist he didn’t feel he had a child porn addiction, and that he could go “several days” without viewing his porn stash.

Justice Graham Hiley said everything Hayden told his psychiatrist was “somewhat odd” and failed to show insight into his crimes.

Barrister Peter Elliot, for Hayden, said, “all of it is material of which right thinking people disapprove”, but that his client had only fallen into downloading child porn because of his interest in porn featuring young, skinny “underdeveloped” women.

Police also found a library of more than 30,000 legal porn images on Hayden’s computer, the court heard.

“Yes, what my client has done is despicable, disgraceful, whatever you want to say, but he has contributed as well,” he said. “In his time in the NT he has been spat on, he has been abused, he has had to take risks to protect the community.”

Hayden, who rose as high as an Acting Sergeant, had been working at a suburban motorbike dealership since being sacked from police.

Commonwealth prosecutor Sarah Gibbs said it was “apparent that this is something more than a passing interest”, given the number of files.

“Mr Hayden, as a serving police officer, was in a better position than most people understand the impact of such offending.”

Justice Hiley, sentenced the former cop to two years jail, suspended after two months.