Sunshine Coast men found with or accessing child exploitation material | Map
The locations of specialist police raids on child exploitation material fiends can be revealed, with an ex-youth justice worker and a father among those caught. See the map.
Police & Courts
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More than 156,000 child exploitation material files have been uncovered by specialist police units on the Sunshine Coast in recent years as the locations of their raids are revealed.
Targeted search warrants by the Australian Federal Police, Task Force Argos and local Child Protection Investigation Unit detectives have led to multiple convictions for those caught with the material on the Sunshine Coast.
Judge Richard Jones in one of his sentences in Maroochydore District Court described the files as “horrific and degrading abuse”, with offenders fuelling this trade by viewing them online.
According to the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, its Child Protection Triage Unit received more than 33,000 reports of online child sexual exploitation in 2021 alone.
For National Child Protection Week held from September 4-10 2022, the organisation wanted to spread the message of “every child, in every community, needs a fair go”.
In a statement by the centre, Human Exploitation Commander Hilda Sirec said child safety was a whole of community issue and needed a whole of community response.
“Regardless if you’re a parent, carer, friend or front line worker, everyone can play a part to keep children safe,” Commander Sirec said.
*For 24-hour sexual violence support call the national hotline 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or MensLine on 1800 600 636.
These are the names of the people sentenced for being caught with or accessing child exploitation material below.
CONVICTED
Peter Joseph O’Keefe
A Beerwah man was sent to jail after he collected nearly 10,000 images and more than 1400 videos containing child exploitation material over 10 years, a court has heard.
Peter Joseph O’Keeffe, 47, pleaded guilty in Maroochydore District Court on July 11, 2022, to knowingly possessing child exploitation material.
The court heard police had raided O’Keeffe’s home in February, 2021 after an investigation led to the discovery he’d uploaded five videos which contained child exploitation material to his private account on an online platform in 2018.
The court heard O’Keeffe over a 10-year period had downloaded 1471 videos and 9829 images to his phone or laptop but had never distributed the material he uploaded.
O’Keeffe had previously worked in youth justice services at New South Wales prisons, the court was told.
Judge Glen Cash said the images and videos in O’Keeffe’s possession included scenes of “brutal and abhorrent” treatment of those children involved.
O’Keeffe was sentenced to 15 months in jail, which was suspended after he served five months behind bars for an operational period of two years.
Convictions were recorded.
Kenneth Howard Simpson
Police discovered Kenneth Howard Simpson’s criminality went beyond meth dealing when they found 500 child exploitation videos and 1523 photos during a search of his Sunshine Coast home.
The unlicensed 34-year-old immediately drove to his Tanawha residence when he heard police wanted to search his devices on September 5, 2018.
He pleaded guilty to 17 charges on August 25, 2020 including nine counts of supplying a Schedule 1 dangerous drug, one count of possessing child exploitation material and one count of using a carriage service to access child exploitation material.
Judge John Allen sentenced Simpson to two years in jail suspended for three years after he served six months.
Simpson also received a concurrent two-year jail sentence with release on parole after six months on the condition he enter into a $1000 good behaviour bond.
Convictions were recorded.
Bradley Philip Moffitt Marks
Bradley Philip Moffitt Marks of Palmview, 49, pleaded guilty in Maroochydore District Court on June 16, 2021 to making and possessing child exploitation material, using a carriage service to transmit child abuse material and failing to comply with a reporting condition.
The court heard police arrested Marks on June 30, 2020, after an investigation into him possessing photos of naked children.
The father of two had 14 photos, including five pictures he‘d taken of a 10-year-old girl.
The pictures were not of his children.
Marks, who has been held in custody since his arrest, was convicted and sentenced to three years in jail.
Convictions were recorded.
Andrew Grant Karsten
Children as young as two years old were seen among 86,000 child porn images police found during a raid of Andrew Grant Karsten’s Landsborough home in November 2018.
Police also found 677 pornographic videos of children.
Crown prosecutor Will Slack said in Maroochydore District Court on June 1, 2020 that Karsten, 55, had material of children aged between two and 17.
The court heard that Karsten told police “You name it, I’ve got it. I’m guilty”.
Karsten pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child exploitation material and was sentenced to two years in jail, suspended for three years.
Convictions were recorded.
Paul Max McLaren Grewar
An horrific video of a toddler being abused was one of 52 child files found on 21-year-old Paul Max McLaren Grewar’s computer.
He faced Maroochydore District Court on October 30, 2020.
The court heard he used BitTorrent software over three weeks in 2019 to download the photos and videos of children being abused.
Grewar gave police the passwords to his devices when they raided his Ilkley home on April 7, 2020.
He admitted to viewing 52 files relating to child abuse before moving them to the recycle bin.
He pleaded guilty to one count of using a carriage service to access child exploitation material.
Grewar was sentenced to nine months in jail with immediate release on the condition he agreed to a $1000 good behaviour bond.
Rhys Jaden Friend
A Sunshine Coast teenager who was caught with more than 2000 images and videos of child exploitation material in “one of the worst categories” also distributed it to people on the internet, a court heard.
Police uncovered Rhys Jaden Friend’s dark secret when they executed a search warrant at his Sippy Downs house in May 2019 and accessed his phone and laptops.
The court heard 2213 images and 122 movies of child exploitation material were found on the 19-year-old’s devices.
Judge Richard Jones said the material found on Friend‘s devices was particularly disturbing.
“The children in these images that are viewed by people such as yourself suffer the most horrific and degrading abuse by the perpetrators of this trade,” he said.
“And it's through people like you that this trade is perpetrated.
“It is a completely repugnant form of offending.”
Friend pleaded guilty in Maroochydore District Court on September 14, 2020 to possessing and distributing child exploitation material.
Friend was sentenced to three years’ probation for possessing child exploitation material.
He was given one year in jail, wholly suspended for three years for distributing child exploitation material.
A conviction was recorded for the distribution of the material but not the possessing.
Ian Bloomer
A 70-year-old Sunshine Coast man avoided jail time after more than 800 child-exploitation images were found on his computer.
Ian Bloomer, 70, was sentenced in Maroochydore District Court on February 5 2021 after pleading guilty to possessing child-exploitation material, using a carriage service to access child-pornography material, using a carriage service to make available child-pornography material and making child-exploitation material.
Crown prosecutor William Slack said in July 2019 police identified a computer registered to Bloomer had been used to download hundreds of child-exploitation images.
Police searched Bloomer’s Forest Glen home on July 19, 2019 and found more than 881 child-exploitation images, of which 589 were unique, on his computers.
Judge Glen Cash sentenced Bloomer to two years in prison for possessing child-exploitation material, and eight months for making child-exploitation material, immediately suspended for two years.
For using a carriage service to download and make available the child-exploitation material, Judge Cash sentenced him to two years each, to be served concurrently, with immediate release on a $1000 good behaviour bond.
Convictions were recorded.
Shane Malcolm Watson
A Queensland father who was busted with hundreds of child exploitation material photos told police he only made the “stupid mistake” when he was high on meth, a court heard.
Hundreds of child-exploitation images were found on Shane Malcolm Watson’s devices when police searched his Mooloolaba house.
The Maroochydore District Court heard Watson’s partner was looking through his iPad when she found the concerning images on July 5, 2019.
The court heard 118 accessible photos and 639 inaccessible images, all in Category 1 were found on Watson’s devices.
Watson pleaded guilty in Maroochydore District Court on October 1, 2020 to possessing child-exploitation material.
Watson was sentenced to one year in jail, wholly suspended for two years.
Convictions were recorded.
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