Mark Coombs pleaded guilty in Shepparton County Court to using a carriage service to transmit child abuse material, using a carriage service to cause child abuse material to be transmitted to himself, attempting to use a carriage service to transmit child abuse material and possessing or controlling child abuse material obtained or accessed using a carriage service.
Prosecutor Anna Carlander told the court Seymour police searched Coombs’s home on January 21, 2022, after the Australian Federal Police received phone tip line information about him.
Ms Carlander told the court Coombs had “chats” with six different users in encrypted messaging service Telegram, sending a total of 650 files to them between June 17 and August 6.
She said the files showed “depraved” material, including sexual penetration of pubescent and pre-pubescent children aged mainly under 13 years but as young as under five years, as well as children in sexual poses and some showing bondage.
Coombs also tried to send four more files to other users.
The court heard Coombs also requested and received 46 child abuse files from other users, which included children as young as two or three years old.
Coombs’s solicitor Bec Park said it was conceded the material was “depraved”, which made it serious offending.
However, she argued that 650 files, sent over a short time frame between June and August 2021, was a “relatively small number of items” when compared to some other such cases.
Ms Park also told the court the offending occurred during COVID-19 times, and while Coombs was still working as a delivery driver for a hardware store, he said “isolation and loneliness was the reason for the offending”.
Ms Park also spoke of a report by a psychologist where Coombs told her he felt “stupid more than ashamed” and that “I have done this to myself”.
The psychological report said Coombs had low intelligence and he was a “low to moderate chance of re-offending, due to embarrassment”, Ms Park said.
She asked that her client not be sentenced to prison.
Ms Carlander, however, called for a prison sentence.
“The level of depravity and the different types of offending is too serious that prison could be avoided,” she said.
Ms Carlander argued that the offending did not involve a “low amount” of files as had been argued by the defence, saying 650 files were found and the type of material should be taken into consideration.
“It involves a lot of young children and was seriously depraved,” she said.
Coombs will return to court later in April for further plea and sentence.
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