Police officer fined for child porn images

A 52-year-old New South Wales police officer convicted of possessing child pornography has been fined and put on a good behaviour bond.

NSW police superintendent Vivian Rex Little, who is currently suspended, was convicted of possessing two images of child pornography found by his ex-wife in 2006.

In Downing Centre Local Court today Deputy Chief Magistrate Paul Cloran said the images, which involved prepubescent children, had to be compared with similar cases which involved hundreds or thousands of images.

In giving Little a two-year good behaviour bond and fining him $4,000, he said courts are obliged to do everything they can to prevent the sexual exploitation of children but this offence was at the lower end of the scale.

Priest jailed for child sex offences

A former Catholic priest has been sentenced to more than four years jail for child sex offences.

Edmund John Haines, aged 62, had been a priest in the Geelong area for almost 30 years when police began investigating him for child sex offences.

The Geelong County Court heard Haines had taken pornographic images of a young boy that were later found on his mobile phone.

Haines pleaded guilty to several child sex offences including committing an indecent act with a child under 16.

In sentencing, Judge Chettle said Haines's offending was a breach of trust that had ruined the life of his victim.

He will serve four years and three months jail with a non parole period of two years and six months.

When a policeman becomes a predator

IT WAS late one Friday afternoon last year when Michelle Adams* took a call on her mobile that would change her life.

Two Australian Federal Police officers wanted to see her urgently. Meet them at 6pm at the domestic terminal at Sydney Airport. No arguments. Bring your husband.

"I felt very, very sick. I had been burning a ballet DVD for my daughter's upcoming dance exams and I thought Big Brother had caught me."

But Adams's life was about to become a dance of a much darker kind. Photos and videos of her 10-year-old daughter, Megan, had been found on international child pornography websites, traded between pedophiles in the United States and discussed in chatrooms.

The nine photos, spread out by the officers, showed Megan, a happy, exuberant year 5 student, washing the car in a bikini, bouncing on a trampoline in her school uniform, and playing at the beach.

The photos had been cropped to focus on her crotch and chest, but Adams recognised the swimming costume and a freckle on Megan's upper thigh.

All of the pictures, plus videos of Megan undressing and showering, had been posted on the internet by one of Adams's most trusted friends, a police officer with a wife and young daughter, who played regularly with Megan.

The general duties constable had been arrested a fortnight earlier and granted bail, Adams was told.

He was charged with three counts of using the internet to transmit child pornography, after police found at his home 4900 photos and 204 videos of children as young as two simulating or performing sexual acts.

A bag of women's clothes, which he used in some of his sexual fantasies, was found in his locker at the police station, the court heard.

The child protection unit at the Sydney Children's Hospital, at Randwick, where Adams and her family were counselled, sees more than 760 children a year, some sexually abused, others neglected, beaten or poisoned.

Only two cases have involved internet pornography, but staff fear this number will rise.

"People have to be vigilant about the photos they post on sites like MySpace and Facebook because the reality is that offenders will often use innocent photos and manipulate them in ways to get sexual gratification," says a social worker, Bernadette Walsh.

Many parents were also unaware that perpetrators were often family members or friends, well known to the child, she said.

"We caution children about stranger danger all the time and yet the vast majority of offenders are people within the family or known to the family and we don't give children the skills to talk about that."

The co-head of the child protection unit at the Children's Hospital at Westmead, Robyn Lamb, said staff had seen a surge in the number of children who were victims of internet pornography, including a recent case where a mother posted sexualised photos of her children on American child porn sites.

"We get quite a few cases where children have been coerced in chatrooms by people who they thought were of a similar age. These [perpetrators] are very clever - they know how to pick the vulnerable ones and gain their trust."

She said her unit had about 1200 referrals a year, and about half were victims of sexual abuse.

In the Adams case, the police officer had been trading explicit images of prepubescent girls for years, but had recently told an undercover FBI agent in a chatroom he had been planning to drug and rape Megan, but lost his nerve at the last moment. He had asked the agent if the act would have given him "a buzz".

"I remember driving home and feeling very numb. [My husband] David and I did not speak a word to each other," Adams says.

"I had seen [the officer] in that fortnight after he was arrested. We'd had coffee and he'd been quiet but he didn't mention anything was wrong. His wife had even been asking to have Megan for a play and a sleepover.

"I used to think what a great husband and father he was. Any time he came to dinner at our place he always made a sweet, and he used to do the cleaning and his own ironing and look after [his daughter] Charlotte all the time, and certainly do some fun things with her. They always invited Megan," Adams says.

"There were times when Megan didn't want to go and play with her and I'd say, 'Don't be mean. She's an only child and she's just looking for a good friend.' "

Adams's eyes fill with tears as she recalls this. "My head is spinning when I think about that."

She now knows that the officer was grooming Megan, buying her gifts and treats, and ingratiating himself with Adams, by regularly asking her out for coffee and involving himself in her family's activities.

The bubbly primary school student has never spoken of being molested by him, and seems oblivious to the sexual agenda of his photo collection, but Adams is still gripped with fear that she may have been assaulted without her knowledge.

"We were very nervous about what may have been done to her but I didn't want to frighten her by asking. She knew nothing about sex and I was worried that he may have told her he had a gun and he'd use it on her or us if she told anyone. It could have terrified her if I probed too much," Adams says.

Megan was never medically assessed for sexual assault because the examination must be done within 72 hours of the encounter and the results are notoriously unreliable, but Department of Community Services officers assured Adams her daughter did not exhibit any behavioural signs indicative of molestation, such as repeatedly touching her genitals or acting in a flirtatious manner.

"Megan told me that he gave her a Panadol once for no reason. I think he was testing the waters. He had some extraordinarily strong painkillers at his house and I think he was seeing if Megan could trust him enough to take a pill from him, and if she could swallow a pill," Adams says.

"I did take one last phone call from his wife. I was feeling very angry so I was not a very nice person towards her. [I asked her if she had] any idea what he was up to and her answer was no but that about five years earlier she had caught him with a disc of pornography and he promised her he would never do it again."

The police officer was sentenced to three years and three months in jail, to be served in protection at Grafton. He may be out on parole in August 2010, but Adams's face crumbles when she contemplates his release.

"I don't know what we'll do. Part of me wants to write a letter to all his neighbours telling them what he's done but that's because I'm still angry. Really, I think my goal now is to focus on my family. We need to look after ourselves and heal. The person I feel most sorry for is Charlotte. She is a lovely kid, a really nice little girl, and I feel for her because she's just an innocent person in a very mixed-up family."

Stop Looking * Names have been changed.

Quote: The offender should have been named in this article or else others may be targeted by this person without knowing it.

Child-porn teacher avoids jail

Former Brighton Grammar teacher John Newton Hewitt escaped an immediate jail term after pleading guilty to downloading and possessing child pornography.

Hewitt, 49, of Knoxfield, was imprisoned for 18 months but released on the order that he be of good behaviour for a period of two years and pay a $10,000 bond.

County Court judge Frank Gucciardo said that the children depicted in the pornographic images Hewitt downloaded were the victims of his crime.

"If people such as you don't try to download these depraved pictures there will be fewer abused children," he said.

The County Court heard earlier this week that Hewitt, who used words such as "pre-teen Lolita" to scour the internet for child pornography, was a broken man whose reputation was in tatters.

He was about to take up a senior position at Scotch College when the Australian Federal Police swooped last year.

Prosecutor Krista Breckweg told Judge Frank Gucciardo earlier this week that the AFP acted on a tip-off from the Austrian Interpol, which had been alerted when Hewitt downloaded child pornography from an Austrian website.

Police seized a laptop from his home that contained 266 images and 155 videos, including young girls having sex with men and other children, children aged between 10 and 15 years old using sex toys, and videos of children aged 10 to 14 years in naked poses, she said.

Hewitt had searched for images using keywords including "underage girls", "pre-teen Lolita" and "naked pre-teen sex" and "illegal pre-teen pix".

He downloaded a program called "Historykill" to delete images from his computer's cache, Ms Breckweg said.

In a police interview Hewitt admitted to being "titillated' by the images but said he did not pass them on to other people.

Defence lawyer John Dickinson said Hewitt had led an "exemplary" life before these offences. "Whatever punishment this court inflicts will pale into the shadows because of the punishment he will continue to feel for the rest of his life."

He said Hewitt's career was over, his ex-wife had no contact with him and he had seen his three sons, aged nine to 18, on only three occasions in the past eight months.

Judge Gucciardo said it was hard to accept that someone with Hewitt's experience as a teacher would not reflect on the true nature of child pornography.

The Reverend Brian Porter, the chaplain at Brighton Grammar, said: "He has lost just about everything and now he faces an enormous challenge to discover his true nature."

Suspended sentence for child porn owner

A man caught with almost 35,000 pornographic pictures of children has been has been given a suspended sentence in Adelaide's District Court.

Robert Abbott, 32, from Valley View argued he downloaded the photographs in bundles, in many cases not knowing what they were.

Police also found 23 child porn movies when they raided Abbott's home in February last year.

Judge Steven Millsteed today sentenced Abbott to 16 months in prison.

But he suspended the jail term saying Abbott had co-operated with police and that most of the pictures were not in the most serious categories of child pornography.

Doctor deregistered for explicit photos

A doctor jailed for taking explicit photographs of his female patients in 2004 and 2005 has been deregistered indefinitely.

Gurmit Dhillon, 65, is serving a two-year jail term for secretly taking digital pictures of nine women after unecessarily asking them to remove their underpants.

Police found 70 pictures after seizing a camera, hard drive and three laptops.

Dhillon is eligible for parole in October.

The Medical Professional Conduct Tribunal today ruled he should be suspended as a GP indefinitely for bringing the profession into disrepute.

He has also been ordered to pay $15,000 in costs to the Medical Board.

Suicide taunt to suspects

A DAY after one of the men arrested in a national pedophile crackdown tried to kill himself, a politician has sparked outrage by encouraging people accused of child pornography to commit suicide.

The comment was made as eight more men were charged and a former police officer pleaded guilty to accessing child pornography, saying he was addicted to using the internet and found it a challenge to locate difficult sites.

By late yesterday 98 men were facing charges, a figure expected to rise as many suspects are questioned over coming weeks.

Queensland's Opposition police spokesman, the Nationals MP Vaughan Johnson, told State Parliament: "I hope they bring these grubs to justice.

"One of them committed suicide yesterday, and another one had a big go, but he must not have had the courage to do it properly. If they all went and did it first up, we wouldn't have this problem. They must be guilty if they commit suicide."

A 59-year-old Sunshine Coast teacher charged with possessing child pornography killed himself on May 5, police said, while a 48-year-old teacher from Brisbane's southern outskirts attempted suicide on Thursday.

"As far as I'm concerned, they can all top themselves," Mr Johnson said. "If they are there, interfering with children, they are the lowest form of life on the planet."

A spokesman for Queensland's Opposition Leader, Lawrence Springborg, had no comment on Mr Johnson's views, but the state's police commissioner, Bob Atkinson, said suicide was a "huge concern" in child pornography cases.

Terry O'Gorman, vice-president of the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, said: "Politicians are supposed to provide some leadership. He is happy to lead from the gutter and he should be seen in that light."

As an experienced politician, Mr Johnson was "a disgrace to engage in that sort of mindless comment", Mr O'Gorman said.

A former federal police officer charged with accessing child porn images, Michael Edward Hatch, 38, said he did it as "a challenge", and was not sexually interested in young girls.

Hatch told ACT Magistrates Court he had become obsessed with internet porn while depressed and had gradually moved from viewing adult women to pubescent girls.

"I feel absolute disgust at myself with what I did," he said. "It was vile … To me it was a challenge. That is what I got my excitement from."

Breaking down in court, Hatch said he had not seen the children as victims but now realised that his actions were "despicable".

Hatch's partner, whose name cannot be published under an order by the court, said she did not believe he was a threat to her four teenage children. A psychologist, Marshall O'Brien, said he did not believe Hatch was a pedophile. The case has been adjourned until Thursday.

Meanwhile, the AFP has denied it jeopardised the operation by revealing details before it was finished, saying it was important the public learnt of the danger.

It said it had an electronic record of all those who accessed the European site that sparked the global investigation. It also claimed three people had come forward since the operation was made public on Thursday to confess to accessing the images.

Queensland's Police Minister, Judy Spence, said many Queensland police were "puzzled" by the AFP decision to go public.

The child protection units of the AFP and Queensland police have been at loggerheads for years. Informed sources said there was considerable animosity and jealousy between them.

Man with child porn images jailed

A man found with thousands of child porn images, including some involving infants, was labelled callous and inhuman by a Sydney judge who sentenced him to six years in prison.

Nigel Keith Saddler pleaded guilty earlier this year to possessing 35,508 images and 680 movie files of "the most disturbing and depraved kind", NSW District Court Judge Peter Berman said.

Saddler, 34, was arrested on July 22 last year outside St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney's inner-city suburb of Darlinghurst.

A search of his vehicle revealed a small quantity of cannabis and an external computer hard drive containing thousands of child pornography images.

The following day, police executed a search warrant at Saddler's home in Darlington, in inner Sydney, seizing more computer hardware, CDs and DVDs used to store similar material.

The graphic images featured children aged from 15 years to just months old.

Many of the images were of adults sexually abusing and mutilating children, but some showed children being forced to perform sex acts on each other and animals.

"Even if the offender spent only 10 seconds viewing each image, it would have taken him about 100 hours of continuous viewing to get through everything he had," Justice Berman told the court.

"The callousness and inhumanity of a person who could get pleasure out of viewing such images is beyond comprehension."

Judge Berman said viewing child pornography could escalate into abuse of children.

"I am not suggesting that that has happened in this case, but I am suggesting that it is one of the many reasons which makes the possession of child pornography such a serious offence," he said.

Saddler came from a respected family and had benefited from a "very good upbringing", Judge Berman said, noting that he had been jailed for other offences, including sexual assault.

Saddler pleaded guilty to the three counts of possession, relating to images on the three computer devices found in his car and home.

Each count carries a maximum jail term of five years.

Judge Berman said the six-year sentence he handed down, with a non-parole period of four years and six months, took into account Saddler's guilty plea.

But, he said, the maximum penalty for the charges was "inadequate" since people found with child pornography did not face a charge in relation to each image in their possession.

"However, that is not a matter which can influence me in my determination of the appropriate sentences for these matters," Judge Berman said.

"It is not for me to overcome what I consider to be the inadequacy of the maximum penalty by failing to apply proper sentencing principles."

Saddler has remained in custody since his arrest, which makes him eligible for parole on January 21, 2012.

Sexual imagery banned in children's ads

Advertisements for kids' products must not include sexual imagery or imply that children are sexual beings, under changes to the national advertising code of conduct.

The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) has announced changes to the Advertising to Children Code, after considering 26 submissions from parental groups and health and government bodies.

Included in the changes are regulations which rule out the sexualisation of children - classed as anyone aged 14 or under - in advertising which is published or broadcast in any form.

The code says advertising to children must not include sexual imagery that breaches community standards, or imply that children are sexual beings.

Ads must also not state or imply that owning a product will enhance a child's sexuality.

AANA chair Ian Alwill said the changes would meet the expectations of the Australian community.

"The review has taken note of widespread community concerns, particularly around the sexualisation of children and the portrayal of body image, and we have responded accordingly," Mr Alwill said in a statement.

The changes come as a Senate inquiry, due to report by the end of June, investigates sources of premature sexualisation of children in mainstream media.

A broadening of the definition of alcohol also was included in the rule changes, to prevent any products associated with alcohol being advertised to children.

Another significant change to the code is a prohibition of ads that encourage children to pester their parents to buy a particular product.

Ads targeted at children must also not be placed in media unsuitable for kids.

Major food and beverage advertisers were currently working with international codes and nutrition guidelines to make sure ads directed at children aligned with industry standards, the AANA said.

The Advertising to Children Code is voluntary and compliance is self-regulated by advertisers.

Complaints were handled by the Advertising Standards Board and if an advertisement was found to have breached the code, it would be taken off air, an AANA spokesman said.