Man pleads guilty over child porn

Michael Terrence Binns, 51, was arrested after police searched his Summerhill home and found the images, dating from 2007 to 2008, on his computer and laptop.

The court heard Binns had been jailed in 1999 for sexually assaulting two 11-year-old girls.

A sample of Binns's child pornography collection was shown to Chief Justice Ewan Crawford in the Launceston Supreme Court yesterday.

"To me they were a far worse level- one category than I've seen on other cases," Justice Crawford said.

Child pornography is categorised from the least explicit level one to the most extreme level five.

Binns had three level-five images on his laptop including one of a girl aged between 9 and 12 with both hands bound to her legs and her underwear torn.

Other images showed adults engaging in sex acts with children.

Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Curtis argued Binns carried out a "sustained" search for the material online and risked exposing his three adult children to the images.

"It was his practice to access the sites with those Lolita-type names," she said.

Defence lawyer Tamara Jago, SC, said her client had become "socially isolated" and it was during this time that he began to search the internet regularly and "his interest (in child pornography) escalated from there".

The factory worker was "very troubled" about how a jail sentence would affect his ability to care for his disabled son, which he did on a full- time basis.

Ms Jago said Binns did not distribute the material or frequent internet chatrooms where that type of material was discussed and encouraged.

She said possessing 300 images was at the lower end of the scale compared to other cases and Binns had pleaded guilty at the first available opportunity.

Binns was remanded in custody for sentence on November 14.