STATE OF TASMANIA v CHRISTOPHER JOHN STANDEN 15 AUGUST 2023
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE GEASON J
In October 2019, the Australian Federal Police received notification from the USA about an Australian uploading child abuse material. They made inquiries and identified you as the offender, and a search warrant was obtained to search your home. On 17 October 2019, Australian Federal Police members executed that warrant at your home.
You were present at the premises with other members of your family and provided with a copy of the search warrant and a notice of occupier’s rights. You were provided with an order requiring you to provide information or assistance in relation to computers and storage devices, and you provided your passwords for the access of to those devices.
During the execution of the search warrant, a number of items were seized and found to contain child abuse material. During the execution of the search warrant in October 2019, you participated in a digital record of conversation with the Australian Federal Police during which you made a number of admissions, including that you were aware that you had child abuse material and that you were sexually attracted to children. You said that he had used the Tor browser to download child abuse material images anonymously and had done so for a number of years. You said you would view the material and then place it into folders to store it. The folders were organised by theme.
The seized items were subject to digital forensic analysis, and some of the image and video files have been reviewed and categorised according to the categorisation model for child abuse material.
There were a large number of files located across your devices. The total number of files held on all devices was 2,210,812. Those files were a mixture of files of a non-illegal personal nature and category 1 to 6 child abuse material.
Based on a rate of classification of 25,000 files per week, the Australian Federal Police estimates that it would have taken a minimum of 442 working days to fully classify all devices. Due to the large number of files, an operational decision was made not to classify any of the material in category 6, such as anime and cartoons, as that material did not portray real children.
In terms of what was located, a Seagate-brand one terabyte hard drive and a WD-brand 640 gigabyte hard drive were examined. The Seagate-brand hard drive contained 346,606 files, and the WD-brand hard drive contained 43,891 files. Those devices were partially examined and some files were classified as child abuse materials – a total of 22,492 files.
The category 1 files amounted to 15,763 images; category 2, 1,404; category 3, 2,435; category 4; 2,365 images and category 5, 525 files.
Both of those devices also contained category 6 material, such as anime and cartoons.
An additional nine hard drives were also analysed, each of which contained both personal, non-illegal files, and some category 6 child abuse material. The quantity of child abuse material on each of these devices was not ascertained, but a number of devices were examined and each contained category 6 child abuse material in an unknown quantity
These matters constitute count 1.
As to charge 2, accessing child abuse material, between 19 May 2016 and 14 October 2019, you accessed child abuse material online and downloaded it to your phone and hard drives to save and store it.
In terms of charge 3, which is a State charge of possessing child exploitation material, 175 anime books were located and seized, 35 of which contained category 6 child abuse material.
At the time of the search you were 33 years of age and you are now 36. You were born in Hobart, the eldest of three brothers.
Your secondary education was completed in Hobart and you commenced an undergraduate degree at the University of Tasmania, where you studied a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Japanese and Indonesian. Having completed four years of study, you developed a major depressive and generalised anxiety disorder, which resulted in you reducing you studies before terminating the degree prior to graduation.
During the three years after concluding your university studies, and whilst struggling with your mental health condition, you enrolled in Tas TAFE and completed certificate IIII in Computer Systems Technology, as well as diplomas and other advanced diplomas in Information Systems.
Around this time you separated from your partner after a relationship of approximately 10 years.
Apart from the period at university during which were suffering a major depressive illnesses, you have maintained an ongoing record of employment, commencing in 2002 with voluntary work and concluding in January this year, working at Tas TAFE as a learning support tutor, a position you have held since 2018.
At a young age you developed an interest in anime, a form of Japanese cartoon which is a legitimate mainstream genre of animation in Japan and has a multitude of varieties and cartoon types. You had started learning Japanese at school in year 8 and that dovetailed into your interest in anime, and you began collecting comic books, and translating the Japanese into English. The child exploitation material falling within that category is described by your counsel as an underground offshoot of that material.
At the end of high school, you came out as a gay man. Around this time it is suggested to me that you were developing a growing sense of body dysmorphia. You apparently found you could escape from these feelings through reading and engaging in video games where you could fantasise about being someone else. When it came to pornography, that escapism continued. Initially you preferred a narrative type of pornography contained in pornographic anime, which essentially was story telling which included pornographic images.
During your formative years, you developed crushes on some of your male friends and it is put to me that your interest in child abuse material stems from the attachment that you had to that time in your life. It is put that the consumption of this type of material is related to the formative part of your sexual maturation and is not indicative of a desire to engage in sexual acts with children or young people. Your counsel told me that you accepted that the consumption of this material was more than a habit and had developed into an addiction.
You struggled with this addiction, and you were ashamed by it, often deleting material before eventually going back to it. You would convince yourself that looking at the material was not hurting anyone.
You now accept that viewing this material creates a market for it and that there are real victims, and you are said to be genuinely remorseful. I accept your pleas of guilty as consistent with that. I accept too that you had no interest in directly hurting other people or acting on the material that you were viewing, and this is borne out in the report that I have received.
In terms of the material you accessed and possessed, of the non-anime material, over 15,000 of the files were category 1, the lowest level within the classification scale.
You are in a long-term, stable relationship and have the support of your partner. You have the support of your family. None of that means they approve of your behaviour but it represents a support for you as a person as you navigate this process and its consequences and is a good foundation for your long term rehabilitation.
I acknowledge that for three years you have been in a sort of limbo waiting first to be charged and then for the resolution of this matter. The Commonwealth concedes that delay is a significant mitigating factor and afforded weight. You have been on bail with stringent conditions over this period. You have observed those conditions, and there is no suggestion of reoffending. That is also relevant to sentence.
You have lost your employment having first been suspended and then tendering your resignation in January. You have had to forego offers of employment too.
Whilst this is a direct result of your behaviour, it is nevertheless a detriment you have borne and serves to reinforce to you the wrongfulness of your conduct, and will operate as a personal deterrent.
I have received a forensic mental health report which has assisted me. It is not suggested you suffer from any psychotic illness and there is no history of substance misuse. There is no suggestion that any underlying mental illness has affected your ability to understand the wrongfulness of your actions. It is considered that you will benefit more from individual psychotherapy than participation in any organised treatment program for sex offenders. According to the report there is no such treatment available to you in custody. I have regard to that fact in framing the penalty I impose today. Whilst you are to be punished for your behaviour, and it is important that the Court deters others, it is just as important in my view that you receive treatment which will facilitate your rehabilitation. That is in your interest and the community’s interest.
The principles which are applicable for sentencing offenders such as you are well settled.
Ordinarily an immediate period of imprisonment is required for such offending, to reflect the objective seriousness of the crimes. Those responsible for the production of this content are encouraged by people such as you to do that. There is of course a presumption of harm to the victims of child exploitation offending arising from the recognition that exposing children to sexual experiences especially with adults has harmful effects on their social psychological and psychosexual development. The number of images establishes that very many children are depicted and thereby victimised by those responsible for the production of that material, conduct your behaviour has encouraged.
General deterrence is the primary sentencing consideration given the prevalence and availability of such material on the internet, and the need to protect children from sexual abuse. Offending such as this is becoming more prevalent due to the ease with which such material can be disseminated and accessed on the internet.
The Court must also impose a penalty which effectively denounces such behaviour and operates to protect the community.
Your offending involved three separate charges covering two distinct and discrete offence categories. Count 1 and 2 Commonwealth offences; count 3 a State offence. Your overall offending involved possession of over 22,000 files containing child abuse materials as well as the category six material covered by count three.
There is some degree of sophistication attaching to your behaviour insofar as you have used an encrypted browser. The material contained is highly depraved and disgusting examples involving the rape and sexual assault of very young children by adults. It was stored on over 12 devices and catalogued according to theme. Your offending was not spontaneous nor isolated and was carried on between 2016 and 2019.
I take account of your plea of guilty. I have already acknowledged that it constitutes evidence of your remorse. There is also a utilitarian benefit which accrues by reason of your plea and you are entitled to a discount in your sentence for that benefit. I will discount the sentence I would otherwise have imposed by 20% in recognition of that benefit. You are also entitled to the mitigatory benefit of your co-operation including admissions made to police during the course of the investigation.
You appear before the Court without prior convictions and it is accepted that you are otherwise of good character. Such matters assume limited weight in the context of this type of offending because it is commonly the case.
In fixing penalty, I am required to have regard to the principles of totality. Ordinarily I would address that by imposing a global penalty, but in this case because there is a State offence and I’m required to impose a separate penalty for that conduct. In order to address the requirement for a sentence which is not a crushing one, I will make the operation of the State sentence concurrent with the sentences I impose in respect of the Commonwealth charges.
On count 1, I sentence you to 20 months imprisonment.
On count 2 I sentence you to 12 months imprisonment cumulative to the sentence that I have imposed in respect of count 1.
On count 3 I sentence you to 8 months imprisonment concurrent with the sentence that I have imposed in respect of count one.
The total period of imprisonment is therefore two years and six months.
Because the sentence that I am imposing is less than three years I am required to make a recognisance order, by which order you will be made subject to a number of conditions upon your release, and through which mechanism you will be released prior to the end of the sentence that I have imposed.
I order that you be released under paragraph 20(1)(b) of the Crimes Act after serving 12 months of the term of imprisonment that I have just imposed upon you entering into a recognisance of $5,000 to comply with conditions that you be of good behaviour for a period of three years.
Your release will be subject to the mandatory conditions stipulated in s 20(1B) of the Crimes Act.
You are required to report to Community Corrections within two working days of your release from custody.
During the period of the order (and all of these conditions will be set out in the document provided to you), you are to report to and receive visits from Community Corrections officers as required and you are to notify an officer of Community Corrections if at any stage you change your address or your employment and you must do so within two clear working days after such change.
I further order that you are to attend for assessment for treatment for your sex offending.
I further direct that your name be placed on the register in accordance with the Community Protection Offender Reporting Act, and that you comply with reporting conditions as required by that Act, for a period of eight years after your release.
I make the forfeiture orders sought by the Commonwealth.