Lake Heights man Mitchell Horan to be sentenced for child abuse material possession

A jail sentence is hanging over the head of a creep who confessed to accessing a Russian-hosted website to hoard child abuse material.

Mitchell Horan leaving Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday flanked by his mother and aunt. Picture: Dylan Arvela

A creep “knew exactly what he was doing” when combing through a Russian website collecting child abuse material to store in a secret app on his phone.

Mitchell Horan, 26, appeared in Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday where he was due to be sentenced after pleading guilty to possessing 163 items of child abuse material.

Documents before the court state the offending was uncovered by police after a tip off in August, 2023.

Officers searched Horan’s Lake Heights home and seized a Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone where he stored the despicable content on a pin-protected photo app called GalleryVault.

Horan was arrested and told police he had been accessing the material via Russian-hosted image-sharing website and messaging app Kik.

Mitchell Horan accessed the material via a Russian-hosted image sharing site and Kik.

Documents state he would search categories including “girl” and had been doing so for “approximately a couple of months”.

The material, which included 100 videos and 63 images, depicted children as young as five engaging in sexual acts or poses.

One of the videos included a dog and a child aged between five and seven.

In court on Wednesday, Crown solicitor Jackie Azad submitted the threshold for a jail sentence had been crossed.

“It is conceded the amount is not the hundreds of thousands the courts often see in matters of this type,” Ms Azad said.

“But the material is degrading and it’s not one child, it is multiple children.

“He knew exactly what he was doing … (the offending) is callous and predatory.”

Horan’s lawyer Alyce Fisher rejected the jail threshold had been crossed, citing given her client’s lack of a criminal record a community correction order with a long period of supervision would be adequate.

The court heard Mitchell Horan was consuming up to a dozen alcoholic drinks a day at the time of the offending. Picture: Dylan Arvela

Offenders being sentenced for this type of offending cannot be given a custodial intensive correction order.

Ms Fisher told the court Horan was “not accessing the dark web” with the website and app used “freely available for anyone to access”.

The court heard Horan was diagnosed with adjustment disorder and depression which was being treated by a psychologist.

Ms Fisher submitted her client was suffering from “significant issues in his life at the time” which he was self-medicating for by consuming up to a dozen alcoholic drinks a day.

The court heard Horan sought help from the Illawarra Drug and Alcohol Service days after he was charged.

Ms Fisher noted the ongoing support of Horan’s family including his mother, father and aunt who were at court.

Magistrate Mark Douglass will sentence Horan later this month.

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Originally published as Lake Heights man Mitchell Horan to be sentenced for child abuse material possession