Joshua Aaron Macgowan faces Toowoomba District Court over child exploitation material offence

The 43-year-old father of two thought the child exploitation material was hidden in a secure ‘vault’, but police found otherwise.

Joshua Aaron Macgowan leaves Toowoomba Magistrates Court after pleading guilty to CEM.Friday, February 10, 2023. Picture: Nev Madsen.

A 43-year-old father of two secreted 100 child exploitation material in what he thought was a secure “vault” on his phone but police forensic examiners were able to discover the stash.

Joshua Aaron Macgowan was 41 with no criminal history when police arrived at his Toowoomba home in September 2021 with a search warrant, Toowoomba District Court was told.

Police seized his mobile phone claiming it contained child exploitation material but Macgowan denied any knowledge of any such images being there, Crown prosecutor Emily Coley told the court.

“By his plea of guilty, that was clearly a lie,” she said.

Police examining the phone were able to ascertain that there were 100 images of CEM which were hidden in an NQ mobile vault, she said.

Joshua Aaron Macgowan leaves Toowoomba Courthouse after pleading guilty to possessing CEM. Friday, February 10, 2023. Picture: Nev Madsen.

Ms Coley said of the 100 images, two were considered to be the most serious category 1 while the other 98 images were category 2.

However, Ms Coley said the Crown accepted none of the images were of the worst kind.

She said police later obtained a warrant in order to access the vault and returned to Macgowan’s home on December 13, 2021, but he refused to provide officers with the password to the vault and so was further charged.

Macgowan pleaded guilty on Friday, February 10, to one count each of possessing CEM using an anonymising service and contravening an order under the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act.

Ms Coley submitted a sentence of 18 months to two years with some time actually served in custody.

Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren SC said such offending brought a mandatory term of imprisonment actually served unless it could be shown there were “exceptional circumstances”.

Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren SC found there were “exceptional circumstances” in Joshua Aaron Macgowan’s case.

Macgowan’s barrister Steve Kissick submitted there were exceptional circumstances in that his client had never been before a court before and that he had co-operated with police in handing over the phone and PIN.

And, though he had declined to provide the password to the vault, the police could see what was in there but just couldn’t date them, he said.

The images were at the lower end of the scale for such matters and his client had not shared any material, Mr Kissick submitted.

Judge Horneman-Wren found there were exceptional circumstances and sentenced Macgowan to 15 months in jail but suspended the whole term immediately to hang over his head for two and a half years.