Where an offender pleads guilty to possession of child pornography on a date when they were an adult, the offence is committed as an adult for the purposes of automatic registration under s 6(1) of the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004 (Vic), even if the material first came into the offender's possession when they were a child. The exception in s 6(3)(a) for offences committed 'as a child' does not apply. The durative nature of possession does not alter this result. The policy of the Act restricting disclosure of register contents supports anonymisation in proceedings challenging registration.
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