A TAMWORTH teacher charged with possessing child pornography last year, during Australia's biggest crackdown on sex crimes, received a two-year good behaviour bond in court yesterday.
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Ian David Piddington, 44, of a Drummond Ave address in Armidale, pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography in Tamworth Local Court after police executed a search warrant on a residence at Farrer Memorial Agriculture High School in September.
During the raid, police seized two computer hard drives and a number of storage disks from the house following an intensive investigation based on intelligence received from overseas.
Operation Auxin – the biggest joint police investigation in Australian history – in the past two months has resulted in more than 400 charges being laid for offences ranging from downloading child pornography to child rape.
The court was told 39 images of males pictured naked and engaging in sexual acts were found on a lap top hard drive and disks seized during the raid.
Mr Piddington, a former teacher at Farrer, appeared before Magistrate Mal MacPherson dressed in a black suit and sat behind his barrister Peter O'Connor as details of the case against him were read out. The court heard the images of young males were obtained through preview portals on adult porn websites in November 2002 and December 2002.
Mr O'Connor said the images were mainly of borderline consenting adolescent males, with his client having an obsession with pornography not child pornography.
"Since my client's arrest he has lost his career and everything he worked hard for has been destroyed," Mr O'Connor said. "The effect these charges have had on my client are
devastating.
"Psychological assessments on my client have revealed he was lured into the underworld of the Internet and does not show any signs of paedophile traits." He said assessments had put his client in the low risk category of sex offenders and therefore didn't feel the charge was a matter for a custodial sentence.
Police prosecutor acting sergeant Dave Coulton urged the magistrate to take into account the residence where the items were seized before handing down his sentence.
Magistrate MacPherson agreed Mr Piddington was at the low end of the scale as a sex offender and took into account he already had undergone treatment.
He said in the circumstances the subjects in the images were borderline age of consent and therefore taking into account the report by psychologists that put Mr Piddington in a low risk category as a sex offender.
"It is clear references by children under Mr Piddington's tutorage at Farrer state that there was no suggestion any sexual activities occurred," Mr MacPherson said.
"Mr Piddington has an obsession with pornography and treatment for this needs to continue. Therefore I'm giving him a Section 9 two-year good behaviour bond.
"Mr Piddington will need to visit the Armidale Probationary office within seven days and on a regular basis thereafter."
