John Edward Menz, a 54-year-old unmarried man living alone in a granny flat at his mother’s Oak Flats property, was sentenced to 12 months behind bars after confessing to purchasing dozens of sexually explicit videos containing boys as young as eight years’ old from the website in 2010 and 2011.

The Mercury can reveal Australian Federal Police learned of Menz’s crimes after being contacted by the Toronto Police Service with information about Australian-based users of the website.

Toronto police said their investigation had uncovered 2948 purchase orders made from Australia prior to 2010, totalling $152,693, while a further 875 purchases have been made since then, totalling $43,757.

The website itself has generated more than $1.6 million and distributed child abuse material to 94 countries world wide since its inception.

Federal police forwarded information about Menz’s involvement to the NSW Police child exploitation unit in July 2013.

Officers from Lake Illawarra command searched his house in October last year, seizing DVDs purchased from the website, along with computer storage devices and a laptop containing a large number of video files depicting child pornography.

Police who viewed a selection of the material ranked the various videos as lying between categories one (the lowest, often involving nudity but no sexual activity) and four (the second highest, involving full intercourse) on the Child Exploitation Tracking Scheme.

However, in an interview with investigating officers Menz denied the videos were child abuse material at all, apparently telling them the DVDs were ‘‘naturist’’ in genre.

‘‘The accused explained...his interest in the DVDs was that they held ‘a certain boyish exuberance, freedom, they are fun’ and that they were ‘refreshing after a hard day’ and [said] ‘I don’t get any sexual gratification’ from viewing the content,’’ police said in a written statement to the court.

Magistrate Susan McGowan said Menz’s lack or remorse was of considerable concern.

‘‘[The accused] sees nothing wrong with his conduct...he also says neither does his mother,’’ she said.

‘‘I can see no remorse whatsoever.’’

Magistrate McGowan said there was a strong need for general and specific deterrence when handing down the sentence, saying child abuse material wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a market for it.

‘‘The evil in matters of this nature is somewhere in the world, children have been forced into sexual conduct and exploited to meet the sexual gratification of adults,’’ she said.

‘‘The children involved have their lives corrupted as a consequence of this conduct.’’

Magistrate McGowan set a non-parole period of five months, meaning Menz will be eligible for release in December.