By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A HAMPTON Park man has been put on the state’s sex offenders’ register and a two-year corrections order after pleading guilty to knowingly possessing more than 2600 images of child pornography.
James Lancaster, 58, had stored the images – including 15 videos – on eight of 12 electronic storage devices including computers, memory sticks and a mobile phone seized by police at his home on 12 August.
The 2619 images depicted children in sexual activity or in an “indecent manner or context”, according to a charge sheet tendered to Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 25 July.
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen agreed with police estimates that the children were as young as 7 to 9 years old, many about 14-16 years.
The raid was sparked when police discovered three images on Lancaster’s email address. Federal police were informed and Dandenong SOCIT executed the search warrant.
Lancaster’s lawyer said a random sample of the material showed most of the subjects were “post-pubescent teenagers”.
“It’s not at the upper end but in the middle end of the scale.”
About 2200 of the images were classified at the lowest category 1, with the rest rated up to category 6, the court was told.
About a third of the images were found copied on multiple devices.
Mr Vandersteen said general deterrence and denunciation must be at the forefront of the sentence. Other factors were the age of the children and gravity of the depicted sexual acts.
He said in cases of systematic abuse and exploitation, children were vulnerable because of their age and personal circumstances.
“The offending done to them has long lasting effects even as an adult and disrupts their growth from what a normal child or adolescent should have.”
The images wouldn’t be produced if there weren’t end-users such as Lancaster, Mr Vandersteen said.
Lancaster had no prior offences, and an “unremarkable” childhood and adult life. He had not sold, distributed or profited from the images.
During extensive counselling, Lancaster’s thinking and his reasons for keeping child pornography were challenged, Mr Vandersteen said.
Lancaster had as a consequence shown great insight into his offending, its impacts on children and the broader community, the judge found.
As part of his two-year supervised community order, Lancaster must perform 400 hours of unpaid work.
Lancaster was put on the sex offenders’ registry to regularly report to police for the next eight years.
He was referred to undergo a sex offenders’ program and ordered to provide a DNA forensic sample.
