A Tasmanian farm worker who collected more than 1,700 child exploitation files while posing online as a teenager to groom minors has been jailed for six years.
This story contains details which may distress some readers.
Aaron George Torphey, 40, pleaded guilty to 17 charges, including possessing and sharing child abuse material, grooming and attempting to obtain indecent images from children.
The Supreme Court of Tasmania heard police uncovered Torphey’s activities after receiving information about suspicious activity on the encrypted messaging app Telegram in early 2023.
When officers seized and examined his phone, they uncovered 1,719 files spread across multiple folders. The material included images and videos of children aged four to 14.
Operating under the username “The Reaper”, Torphey shared 2,925 files to 13 other users between 2021 and 2023.
In disturbing chatroom conversations, the court heard, he boasted about sexually abusing children he babysat or lived with.
He later told police these claims were fabricated to build his “online persona of a big-time paedophile” – a claim Justice Kate Cuthbertson dismissed.
“Your descriptions were not obviously based in fantasy,” she said.
“There is no question in my mind that you have a strong interest in material depicting the sexual abuse of children in a particularly brutal context.”
Beyond trading images, Torphey directly targeted real children online while impersonating a 16-year-old boy across multiple platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat.
He solicited nude photos from an 11-year-old girl and engaged in sexual video calls with a 15-year-old Victorian girl.
The court also heard that, even after his arrest in February 2023, Torphey breached bail conditions banning him from contacting minors by grooming a 14-year-old Tasmanian girl and sending her explicit images of himself.
Torphey will be eligible for parole after serving three and a half years behind bars. Upon release, he must remain on the sex offender register for 15 years.
