Border Force officers found animated child abuse material on Shepparton man’s phone

A prosecutor told the court Australian Border Force officers found 33 files of child abuse material on the man’s phone after he arrived at Melbourne Airport from San Francisco on May 21, 2024.

Officers found 19 images and 14 videos on his phone that were all computer-generated images or animations.

The man, who was 24 at the time, told Border Force staff and police he didn’t know anything animated was considered illegal.

The files were evaluated as category two under the Interpol Baseline Scale and had been downloaded between April 17, 2022 and September 4, 2022.

The man’s defence counsel said although the material his client possessed was depraved and disturbing, there was a low number of files compared to similar cases.

He told the court out of the 28,000 files on his phone, 1000 were animated pornography, and only three per cent of those files were illegal.

He said no real children were involved in the offending, and some of the files had been auto-downloaded from messaging app Kik.

He said his client was candid and co-operative with Border Force staff and police at the airport, had no priors, and had been assessed as a low risk of sexual reoffending.

He said being charged eight months after the incident, his client faced a period of uncertainty, but pleaded guilty at the first available opportunity.

He also said although his client didn’t know the material was illegal, he now had an understanding and appreciation as to why he shouldn’t have possessed it.

The prosecutor conceded the “inherently grave offending” was at the lower end of a serious scale, but had the capacity to normalise contact offending involving real children.

Magistrate Olivia Trumble noted the man had accepted responsibility for his offending, and the matter would have hung over his head, causing him significant distress.

She said although his offending was at the lower end of the scale of a wide range of offences, there was a danger associated with child abuse material even when it didn’t involve actual children.

Ms Trumble placed the man on a 12-month good behaviour bond with conditions he see a GP, get a mental health care plan and continue psychological counselling.

If he doesn’t meet these conditions, he will have to pay $500.

He must also comply with sex offender reporting obligations for eight years.