Snapchat grooming offender Evan Wayne Cornelius jailed for four years following police bust

NAMED: A 26-year-old Launceston man who used numerous social media accounts to groom and procure sexual imagery from multiple underage victims has been jailed for four years.

Evan Wayne Cornelius pleaded guilty to 19 Commonwealth child sex offences committed between June 2017 and July 2018. Picture: istock

A 26-year-old Launceston man who used numerous social media accounts to groom and procure sexual imagery from multiple underage victims has been jailed for four years by the Supreme Court of Tasmania.

Evan Wayne Cornelius pleaded guilty to 19 Commonwealth child sex offences committed between June 2017 and July 2018, but which were not discovered until officers from the Tasmanian Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team raided his Rocherlea home in 2023.

Justice Robert Pearce said Cornelius used social media apps including Snapchat, Instagram and Telegram to initiate online conversations with minors as young as 12, before sending them explicit images of himself, and requesting the same in return.

The court heard that when police analysed the defendant’s phone, they found more than 2000 video files containing child abuse material, totally 90 hours of viewing time.

Referring to a psychological report tendered to the court, Justice Pearce said although Cornelius’s abuse of alcohol and drugs may have contributed his offending, it could not reduce the seriousness of his actions or his responsibility for it.

Justice Pearce told the defendant that although he was a young man at the time of his crimes, and that he had pleaded guilty at any early stage in proceedings, many of the images in his possession were of “a most depraved” nature.

His Honour said that an overwhelming consideration in sentencing the perpetrators of such crimes was the protection of children.

“Offenders must not only be punished and denounced, but sentences must serve to, as far as a court is able to achieve, signal to others the likely harsh consequences,” Justice Pearce said.

“To the extent that your offending consisted of online communications in 2017 and 2018 between you and the victims, there is a very strong need for general deterrence and protection of the public.

“Such offences are difficult to detect because they are inherently and intentionally committed in secret, beyond the notice of those who would be responsible for the safety and protection of the young person.

“Young persons who participate in such online communications must, as far as a court is able to achieve, be protected from their own vulnerability, immaturity and misjudgment by imposition of sentences which seek to deter those who would seek to take advantage of them.”

“By seeking child abuse material online you contributed to the market for it.

“Children across the world are corrupted, abused and exploited to create the type of material which you possessed.”

Justice Pearce sentenced Cornelius to four years’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of two years, and ordered the defendant’s name be placed on state’s community offender register for a period of eight years after his release.

Following the sentence, Australian Federal Police Detective Acting Sergeant Dannii Campbell said anyone who viewed images of children being sexually abused was committing a crime.

“The AFP and its partners, across Australia and overseas, are committed to protecting children and prosecuting anyone involved in their harm,” Det Sgt Campbell said.

“Children are not commodities to be used for the abhorrent gratification of sexual predators and the demand for videos and images depicting abuse contributes to the physical harm and torture of innocent children.”