The Court imposed an effective aggregate sentence of 5 years imprisonment with a 3-year non-parole period for Commonwealth child abuse material offences and a State sexual touching offence against a child. The Court rejected the offender's claimed motivation for possessing child abuse material (administrative role on an online platform), finding beyond reasonable doubt that the material was accessed for sexual gratification, which undermined findings of contrition but did not wholly defeat the mental health nexus — the Court accepted that a provisional ASD diagnosis was clinically consistent with prolonged engagement with the material irrespective of stated motivation. The sentencing structure placed the State fixed-term sentence first with the Commonwealth aggregate sentence partially accumulated by backdating one year, following the approach endorsed in Burbridge v R [2016] NSWCCA 128.
The full text is available to signed-in members.