JENKINS, L A

THE KING v LEE ANTHONY JENKINS 3 SEPTEMBER 2026

COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J

Lee Jenkins, you plead guilty to 11 counts of possessing or controlling child abuse material obtained or accessed using a carriage service contrary to the Commonwealth Criminal Code, s 474.22A(1). I also agreed to deal with your plea of guilty to two State charges of breaching bail.

The charges are across two complaints. Five child abuse material charges on one complaint arise from a police search of your home in Launceston on 29 August 2024. You were aged 48 at the time. The police found electronic devises including hard drives, laptops, a computer, phones and a tablet. Five of the devices contained the child abuse material:

a WD portable hard drive contained 21 child abuse material images and 11 videos downloaded between 27 March 2024 and 1 June 2024;
another WD hard drive contained 108 images and 11 videos downloaded between 1 May 2024 and 28 August 2024;
an HP laptop contained 82 images and 9 videos downloaded on 24 August 2024;
a Samsung tablet contained 31 images downloaded between 7 and 8 June 2024; and
a Toshiba hard drive contained 148 images and 19 videos downloaded between 15 April 2024 and 26 August 2024.

Of the total 390 child abuse material images, 236 were category 1, that is, depicting real prepubescent children involved in or witnessing sexual acts, or material focussed on the anal or genital region. Of the 50 videos, 42 were category 1. The remainder of the images and videos were category 2. The gravity of the child abuse material varied, but some of it was of the most depraved kind, depicting very young females being subjected to vaginal and anal penetration by penis, fingers or objects, and children committing sexual acts on other children.

You were arrested and charged with those five counts and admitted to bail. There were conditions of bail that you not access the internet unless for personal banking, financial affairs, medical appointments, and emergency or legal requirements, and that you possess only one phone, computer or tablet with internet access.

Just over a year later on 10 December 2025, while the bail conditions were still in place, your home was searched again by the police. They found a computer, a laptop, an internet capable Chromebook and three mobile phones. They also found three adapters with micro SD cards and a 32 GB USB. Six of the devices contained the child abuse material. You were charged with a further six counts, each count relating to a separate device:

an EMTEC adapter with a Micro SD contained 367 child abuse material images and three videos downloaded on 5 December 2024;
another EMTEC adapter with a Micro SD contained 697 images and two videos downloaded on 8 December 2025;
a Samsung adapter with Micro SD contained 680 images and seven videos downloaded between 2 December 2025 and 7 December 2025;
a Sandik USB contained 2 images as part of files downloaded on 6 October 2024;
a WD computer hard drive contained 432 images and three videos downloaded on 5 December 2025; and
a Toshiba hard drive contained 1,043 images and seven videos downloaded on 9 December 2025.

Of the total 3,221 child abuse material images, 1,749 were category 1. Of the 22 videos, 21 were category 1. The remainder of the images and videos were category 2. Again, the material included images and videos ranging in gravity from depiction of children in swimwear to material of the most depraved kind, with children, some as young as toddlers, being subjected to vile sexual abuse, including being subjected to penetrative sex acts with adults. I infer from the description of some of the material that there was some duplication across devices, but the primary focus is to be the degree of its depravity and the quantity is secondary.

You are now aged 50. You have a supportive family. Your vocation was in performing arts but for more than 12 years you held employment as a disability support worker. You also worked as a teacher’s aide. It is obvious that you will never work in such a capacity again. You have no relevant prior convictions and have not been to prison before. You were arrested on 10 December 2025 and have been in custody since then. Before that you lived alone and received a disability pension.

On one of your mobile phones the police found messages you sent to your brother, and a voice recording made just before the first police search, which complained that you were obsessed with young girls, that you were a paedophile and you could not resist the urge to view such material. I was informed by your counsel, and in a pre-sentence report from a probation officer, that you suffer from bipolar disorder, ADHD, anxiety and panic disorder and chronic insomnia, for which you are medicated. However, the proposition that these, or any other mental health impairment or condition, caused or mitigate your offending or are otherwise relevant to sentence, was properly disclaimed because there is no evidence to support it. Your offending was motivated by sexual gratification.

Nevertheless, you suggest that you would benefit from therapy and support, either in prison or on your return to the community. I must have regard to the object of your rehabilitation. I take into account the terms of s 16A(2AAA) of the Crimes Act and the matters I am required by that provision to consider. The purpose of rehabilitation is to protect the community by requiring that you undertake treatment in custody or on release, to minimise the chance of reoffending. It is a matter canvassed in the pre-sentence report at some length. You informed the author of the report that you are now embarrassed and ashamed of your conduct. You said that you made some effort to obtain assistance to address the compulsion you were experiencing, but with no success. No form of intervention or therapy has been undertaken. Using one assessment tool, you were assessed as posing a high moderate risk of re-offending. You would agree to psychological assistance but there are limited specialised services in the community.

There are other significant sentencing considerations. I am also required to have regard to the matters set out in Part 1B of the Crimes Act, in particular the factors listed in s 16A(1), and the requirement that you be adequately punished for your offending. The sentence must be of a severity appropriate in all the circumstances. For offences of this type, general deterrence is the paramount factor because the matter of primary importance is the protection of children. The material you possessed depicted abhorrent abuse of real children. By accessing the material you supported the market for the continued corruption, degradation and exploitation of children all over the world. Images remain permanently stored and recirculated, resulting in abused children being re-victimised.

Specific deterrence, denunciation and punishment are also important. There are some aggravating factors which are not present. You did not pay for or profit from the material, and you did not distribute or sell it. However, your offending is not mitigated by the absence of those factors. Your offending was not isolated or spontaneous, or accidental or inadvertent. Forensic examination of the devices revealed your use of the Onion Router (“TOR”) designed to enable and conceal communications on the dark web, and disclosed searches aimed at finding the material. Although the number of images you possessed was not as great as in some other cases, it was still a significant number and the level of depravity of some of it was very high. Your criminal conduct was repeated and continued over 21 months across multiple devices. The second period of offending carries even greater criminality because you quickly returned to offending after having been apprehended on the first occasion, despite the bail conditions imposed to control that risk. Your moral culpability for those crimes is even higher than for the first period of offending, although separated in time only by months. Each time, you retained the material up until your arrest.

You were not cooperative with law enforcement during either search. On the first occasion you refused to provide access to the devices until served with an order requiring you to do so. You refused to identify yourself or acknowledge the documents you were given.

You are entitled to mitigation from your plea of guilty. Your guilty pleas were entered at an early stage. That enabled the proceedings to be finalised without the cost and delay of a trial, and witnesses were spared from having to give evidence. There has been little demonstration of remorse other than the bare entry of the plea. The repeated offending, particularly when on bail, is inconsistent with true remorse, at least at that time. You are also separately charged with breaching bail. They are serious breaches because the conditions were imposed to prevent the offending which then occurred. You are not to be punished twice for the same factor, but the fact that the second set of offences were committed while on bail, also adds to the criminality associated with those crimes.

The maximum sentence for each of the Commonwealth counts is imprisonment for 15 years. On both complaints, no sentence other than actual imprisonment is appropriate. The charges on the first complaint require a term of not less than one year and three months. The Commonwealth charges on the second complaint, require a sentence of not less than two years and three months. I will reduce the total sentence to allow for proportionality and totality by applying some concurrency to achieve an aggregate sentence which is of appropriate severity when all relevant circumstances are taken into account. I have concluded that, allowing for your plea and the chance of rehabilitation, that a head sentence of two years and nine months is appropriate. As a result, I will make a recognizance release order but a period of custody is required sufficient to address the sentencing factors I have identified. An order in this form will also permit a longer period of supervision following your release. There will be a separate but concurrent term for the State offences.

Lee Jenkins, you are convicted on each count on complaints 91430/25 and 90504/26. I order, pursuant to the Crimes Act, s 23ZD, that the five devices listed in the draft order at page 50 of the papers filed 22 July 2026, are forfeited to the Commonwealth. I make an order under the Community Protection (Offender Reporting) Act 2005 directing that the Registrar cause your name to be placed on the Register and that you comply with the reporting obligations under that Act for a period eight years from your release from custody.

On the State offences, complaint 90504/26, counts 7 and 8, I impose one sentence, a term of imprisonment of four months, commencing 10 December 2025. I make no order as to parole for that term. On all Commonwealth charges, that is complaint 91430/25, counts 1 to 5, and complaint 90504/26, counts 1 to 6, you are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of two years and nine months, also from 10 December 2025. I order that you be released after having served 16 months of that term upon you giving security by recognisance without surety in the sum of $2,000, and that you will be of good behaviour for a period of two years from your release. The conditions of that order will be that, while the order is in force, you:

(a) be subject to the supervision of a probation officer appointed in accordance with the order; and

(b) obey all reasonable directions of the probation officer; and

(d) undertake such treatment or rehabilitation programs that the probation officer reasonably directs.

The result is a total term of two years and nine months from 10 December 2025, with release subject to the recognizance after having served 16 months. You are required to report to the office of Community Corrections at Cameron Street, Launceston, within two days of your release from custody, report to and while the order is in force receive visits from, a Community Corrections Officer and notify an officer at Community Corrections of any change of address or employment within two clear working days of the change. The purpose of the recognizance release order I have just made is to provide an incentive for you not to re-offend and to encourage your rehabilitation. If you fail to comply with a condition of the recognizance, for example by committing some further offence, you may be called upon to pay the sum of $2,000, and a court may order that you serve the remainder of the term.