A 41-year-old man has been sentenced to five years imprisonment after pleading guilty to eight serious online child abuse offences committed between 2020 and 2024.
As reported by Pulse in December, an AFP search of the man’s Kings Meadows home found child abuse images and videos, as well as messages with a person believed to be facilitating the sale of child abuse material.
Investigators were led to believe that the facilitator and child victims were located in the Philippines after analysing his seized phone.
Subsequent search warrants in the Cagayan De Oro region in the southern Philippines led to the arrest of two women aged 43 and 23.
The women were charged with human trafficking and child abuse material offences, each of which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
Six children were rescued following the search, including a two-year-old.
Alan Raynor Gray pleaded guilty to four counts of using a carriage service to access or transmit child abuse material and four counts of transmitting indecent communications to persons under 16 years of age.
The court heard that Gray engaged in “highly sexualised” conversations with multiple individuals he believed to be children, in some cases pretending to be a teenager himself.
“I regard the objective seriousness of the offences to which you have now pleaded guilty as extremely high,” Justice Brett said during sentencing.
The court was told Gray’s most serious offences involved participating in discussions about “violent sex acts towards children” and receiving a video of a child aged between 10 and 11 years old, after which he allegedly searched for flights to the Philippines.
The offending was described as part of a pattern of behaviour rather than isolated incidents, with the judge noting the crimes “demonstrate moral culpability of a high degree.”
Gray, who has an intellectual disability and receives a disability support pension, had prior convictions for similar offending, including child sexual abuse offences from 2011.
“Given your criminal history and the nature and timing of this offending, I think that your prospects of rehabilitation are limited,” the judge said.
He acknowledged Gray’s willingness to participate in the Sex Offender Treatment Program while incarcerated.
The five-year sentence includes a non-parole period of three years, with the judge noting a 25% reduction from what would have been a six-and-a-half-year sentence due to Gray’s early guilty plea and cooperation with investigators.
Upon release, Gray will be subject to reporting obligations under the Community Protection (Offender Reporting) Act for 15 years, the maximum period available under the legislation.
