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Tennant man jailed for child abuse material

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A Tennant Creek man was sentenced to prison after being found with more than 3,000 sexually explicit images and videos of underage girls on his electronic devices. Ashley Alum was sentenced in the Darwin Supreme Court on 10 August.

In December 2020, police executed a search warrent at Alum’s house as part of a Territory-wide child abuse material operation. Alum was 28 at the time.

Police found two mobile phones which contained child abuse material stored on them.

A search of his Facebook accounts on other electronic devices in his bedroom found messages relating to sharing the material.

He was arrested the same day and taken to the Tennant Creek Police Station where he declined to participate in a recorded interview.

A forensic examination of Alum’s devices showed he had pretending to be a female child while engaging in conversations with adult men, using various social messing apps.

He told the men he was aged between 11 and 14 years old.

Chief Justice Michael Grant said the conversations were sexually explicit and revolved around the reciprocal sending of sexual mages and videos.

“As part of that, you transmitted pictures and videos depicting female children which you passed off as images of yourself. In return, and in accordance with your scheme, the adult men with whom you were communicating transmitted sexually explicit images and videos of themselves back to you for your own sexual gratification,” said Chief Justice Grant.

“You sometimes proposed meeting with these men in order to participate in sexual activities. It is apparent from the content of some of these conversations that the men with whom you were communicating believed that they were engaging with a female child who was willing to meet in person for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity, and that they knew this activity was unlawful.”

Chief Justice Grant described the material Alum download-ed were of a most depraved kind, depicting sexual activity between adults and children, with some children as young as five years old.

“I can only wonder why you needed to download and keep 3,000-odd images if they did not give you any sexual gratification and it was your only intention to lure adult men into providing you with pornographic images and videos of themselves,” he said.

“The harm caused by offenders like you, Mr Alum, is that young children are used by the manufacturers of child pornography to satisfy the demand which people like you create.”

Alum was sentenced to two years and eight months jail, suspended after 12 months.

Tennant & District Times 19 August 2022

This article appeared in Tennant & District Times, 19 August 2022.

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