A BENDIGO man who carried out “perverted” sexual crimes, including taking up-skirt photographs of women and a child at retail outlets in central Bendigo, has been jailed for a minimum of two-and-a-half years.
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Adrian Robert Finley, 29, also had more than 3600 child exploitation images on his phone and computer, stole a USB containing photographs of children on a school camp from a primary school in central Victoria, and took his own photographs of a young child in suggestive poses.
He was sentenced in the Bendigo County Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to seven charges including two counts of procuring child exploitation material, committing an indecent act with a child under 16 and using a carriage service to produce child exploitation material.
Police raided his former Epsom address on February 15 last year and seized his electronic devices after noticing his online activity.
Finley used aliases to download child exploitation material, including email addresses with names such as “yungnnumb” and “trademewowteen”.
A total of 3681 child exploitation images were found on his phone and computer. Thirteen depicted children engaged in bondage, and eight depicted child rape.
A further 2103 images of children were found.
The images included some that Finley had produced himself using a young child in suggestive poses.
Police also found a “large number” of images taken in quick succession from under skirts of about 15 women in the Bendigo area.
Finley followed the women around Target and Chemist Warehouse, the court heard. One of the images was of a child.
A USB connected to Finley’s computer at the time of the raid was stolen from a central Victorian primary school and contained photographs of children on a school camp. A number of the images had been saved to Finley’s computer.
In an interview with police, Finley disclosed a number of the details of his offending and described himself as “sick”.
He said he had viewed child exploitation material “a lot” over a 12-month period after “inadvertently” stumbling across it while viewing adult pornography.
Finley told police “there’s no explanation for that, I’m just sick in that way”.
He did not share the photographs of the young child or the up-skirting photographs online.
The court was told Finley admitted he knew his actions were wrong, and there had “never been an attempt to shirk responsibility” following his arrest.
Judge John Carmody said Finley was acting out his “perverted sexual fantasies” and he needed to get proper treatment in jail.
“In this sort of offending, the only way you can get parole is if you do the sex offenders program,” he said.
“That’s the kicker – the incentive – for prisoners to engage in it.”
Judge Carmody described the theft of the USB as “targeted” in an attempt to “advance his sexual gratification”.
Finley was jailed for three years and five months, with a non-parole period of two years and six months.
He was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life.