A Tasmanian man caught uploading child abuse material to the internet by a watchdog in the United States has been sentenced to almost two years in prison.
St Leonards man Peter Denholm, 48, had his searches flagged by the United States’ National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children last year.
Authorities tipped off the Australian Federal Police (AFP), who raided his home on July 12 and found a hard drive containing 201 child abuse material files and a laptop.
Among the files were images of young girls aged between about six and 17 and bookmarked on the laptop was a number of websites that featured content of a similar nature.
Supreme Court Justice Robert Pearce said Denholm struggled with alcohol over the two year period many of the searches were carried out and had been a “regular but secret” viewer of pornography since he was introduced to it as a child.
“Compared to some cases the number of images was not large but the primary focus is the nature of the images,” Pearce said.
“A representative sample of the images was described to me and none depict a child involved in sexual activity either on their own or with anyone else.”
“The images were not stored in a sophisticated manner and were not encrypted. They were only for your own use.”
Justice Pearce said Denholm’s young son may be impacted by his father’s imprisonment, but that is “part of the price to be paid for serious crime”.
“Children across the world are corrupted, abused and exploited to create the type of material which you possessed,” he said.
“This type of crime is difficult to detect and so sentences must serve not only to punish offenders but also to warn others of the potential consequences.”
He sentenced Denholm to 21 months in prison with a non-parole period of 12 months.
Denholm’s name will be placed on the community protection offender register for three years upon his release.
