A former Illawarra police officer has been spared going to jail so he can continue his treatment in a child sex offenders program after he accessed hundreds of images of child pornography on his phone.
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Daniel Peter Houweling, a former senior constable in the NSW Police Force, was sentenced in Wollongong District Court on Friday where Judge Andrew Haesler gave him a suspended jail sentence of 18 months.
In November Houweling formally entered guilty pleas to possessing child abuse material using carriage service and use carriage service to access child abuse material.
In agreed facts tendered to court, the 38-year-old was spoken to at Lake Illawarra Police Station on March 31, where his phone was seized.
Officers then went to his Horsley home and executed a search warrant where a number of devices were seized.
Officers from the Professional Standards Command found 237 images and seven videos that were classified as child abuse material on Houweling's phone.
Houweling, a father of two, had stored 10 of the images in a folder, titled 'documents'.
The images depicted prepubescent girls in various stages of undress, engaging in sexually explicit poses.
The remaining 227 images and seven videos existed as cache files, some of which had been accessed via Twitter.
Again, the images were of prepubescent girls in various stages of undress engaging in sexually explicit poses and the videos were animations of children engaging in sexual intercourse.
None of the images were of his children or any children he knew.
Houweling was arrested on March 31 and was charged.
Houweling gave evidence during the sentencing proceedings, telling the court he developed a sexual interest in young girls when he was 14 years old but had not acted on that desire until 12 months before he was caught.
Houweling also said he knew accessing and downloading the child abuse images was illegal due to his job but he consciously clicked on the videos and images.
Forensic psychologist Miriam Wyzenbeek told the court Houweling had a "long-standing" paedophilic interest in children and noted there had been an "escalation" in his offending.
"Based on our conversation, Mr Houweling started seeking more taboo and deviant material," she said.
That assessment was based on the graphic sexualised nature, that included violence towards a child, depicted in the animated videos Houweling watched.
Ms Wyzenbeek also said Houweling "expressed responsibility and remorse" for his behaviour, noting he used the images to cope with the stresses in his life which included his work, relationship and parental responsibility.
She said he told her those factors contributed to his offending, and were an explanation but not an excuse.
When Houweling was asked how he would cope with his underlying paedophilic tendency in the future when he got stressed he said he would use the strategies he had learnt as part of his group sexual offenders program.
Judge Haesler said Houweling had lost his job and family due to his offending.
"As deviant as those thoughts may be, they are not crimes. It was when he acted on those thoughts in the manner set out in facts...there was a period he was unable to supress his desire to access that material," Judge Haesler said.
"He has told me, and I accept, that he was unable to regulate his criminal behaviour.
"At the time he committed the offence, he was a sworn police officer and had a duty to uphold the law.
"He well knew the seriousness of what he was doing and the consequences of being caught."
Judge Haesler said the nature of the images Houweling downloaded were "serious but did not appear to involve children who were put at risk of significant harm".
However noted the animated videos showed a "escalation into illicit behaviour" and his actions were becoming "much more devious", as noted in the psychologist's report.
Judge Haesler said if Houweling was sent to jail his present treatment regime would be interrupted.
He therefore imposed a recognizance release order for both charges where Houweling must pay a $400 fine, be of good behaviour and be supervised by community corrections.
Houweling must continue in his sex offenders group therapy program and will need to complete 100 hours of community service.
He will be placed on the child sex offenders registry and will have to abide by a number of conditions.
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