‘Abhorrent crimes’: Father of two jailed for taking explicit photos of young girls, including daughter and niece

A PAEDOPHILE who took explicit photos of numerous young girls, including his daughter and niece, did so to ‘increase his sexual performance with his child’s mother’, a court has heard. The 42-year-old father of two was sentenced on Thursday.

A 42-year-old father of two has been sentenced in the Alice Springs Supreme Court after pleading guilty to 28 charges relating to gross indecency involving several girls between 2014 and 2018.

A PAEDOPHILE who took explicit photos of numerous young girls, including his daughter and niece, did so to “increase his sexual performance with his child’s mother”, a court has heard.

The 42-year-old father of two was sentenced in the Alice Springs Supreme Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to 28 charges relating to gross indecency involving several girls between the ages of one and 16 between 2014 and 2018. 

Four of the victims were known to him, three of them were under the age of 10 and another girl was under the age of 16.

Five of the charges include the man taking numerous indecent photographs of his niece on multiple occasions when she was between the ages of three and seven.

His daughter was also photographed several times between the ages of one and four.

Thousands of “disgraceful and perverted” child abuse and bestiality images were found in his possession.

The collection included indecent images of unknown females under 16, taken by the offender at various shopping centres and stores across Darwin in 2017.

The images depict young girls shopping with their family in supermarkets, where the man took photos of their groin area and revealed their underwear.

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Justice Graham Hiley said the offender claimed his prime motivation for the “abhorrent crimes” was to “enhance his own sexual performance … rather than seeking sexual gratification”.

The offending was reported on June 25 to police, who executed a search warrant and found three devices that contained illegal child abuse material.

More than 2000 child abuse images were located across the devices and included thousands of images taken by the man, as well as other material depicting sadism or bestiality.

The court heard the man had a methamphetamine problem and had told police he started viewing child abuse images because he had trouble maintaining an erection.

He said it started as swimsuit images of children and progressed to sexually explicit acts and bestiality but he only did it while high on ice, which was supplied by his former partner, who was also an addict.

He denied ever sharing or selling the pictures to anyone.

“Your offending is not as serious as we normally see … because your victims did not know what you were doing and did not suffer any emotional harm (as they were asleep or unaware at the time of the photographs),” Justice Hiley said.

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He said the man had “shown remorse” by pleading guilty and apologising to the child’s mother, and said he agreed the offender had “good prospects of rehabilitation”.

He was sentenced to six years in jail with a non-parole period of four years.