Program triggered child porn relapse: court

By Bree Fuller
Updated November 5 2012 - 11:15pm, first published October 28 2010 - 10:13am

A convicted sex offender caught with almost 70,000 child pornography images - some depicting bestiality and sadism - was inspired by treatment to reoffend, a court has heard.John Douglas Street, 42, was given a two-year good behaviour bond and ordered to complete a sexual offenders treatment program, after having been convicted of possessing child porn in 2005.This was after Street was convicted in 1991 of maliciously inflicting actual bodily harm on his ex-partner in an attempt to have sexual intercourse with her.Yesterday, Wollongong District Court heard that the court-ordered program seemed to have the opposite effect on the Fairy Meadow man, whose curiosity and libido were aroused by hearing the fantasies of other offenders during group therapy sessions.Within months of completing the program in 2006, Street resumed accessing child porn - this time expanding his tastes to include images of even younger children.Street was arrested on February 12, this year, after Australian Federal Police received a tip-off from United States authorities and searched the man's home, the court heard.There they found a desktop computer, external hard drive, hard disk drive, two thumb drives and various CDs and DVDs containing a total of 67,086 child pornography images.According to facts before the court, Street traded the images and videos using MSN messenger and file-sharing programs.He was charged with, and admitted to, two counts of using a carriage service to make child porn available, one count of using a carriage service to access child porn and four counts of possession.Unlike in 2005, Street promised this time to have a better attitude towards a sexual offenders treatment program, telling the court he did not want to reoffend and end up back in jail.Judge Paul Conlon subsequently sentenced Street to a minimum three years' jail for the offences. He will be eligible for release on February 12, 2013.

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