Burnie man sentenced for possessing child exploitation material

Aaron Luke Dooley pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child exploitation material and one count of accessing child exploitation material between November 2016 and February 2017.

In March 2017, police executed a search warrant on Dooley’s residence, where they discovered a hard drive and a laptop containing more than 45,000 images and videos that could be classified as child exploitation material.

Dooley was initially granted bail, but was remanded in custody on March 3, 2018 after failing to appear in court.

He was previously sentenced to 10 months’ jail in February 2016 for possessing more than 13,000 images of child pornography.

But six months of that sentence was suspended, on the condition Dooley committed no further offence punishable by jail for three years.

In the Hobart Supreme Court on Wednesday, Justice Helen Wood noted that Dooley had breached the condition of his suspended sentence.

“When interviewed by police, the defendant was not honest about his offending,” Justice Wood told the court.

The court also heard that police questioned Dooley about images taken from his residence of schoolgirls walking past outside, as well as images of young girls at a local swimming pool.

He was also questioned about his internet search history, which suggested he had looked up the locations of nearby schools.

Justice Wood said Dooley’s recent conduct represented “a significant escalation of the gravity of [his] offending”.

The judge sentenced Dooley to two years and four months’ jail, backdated to when he was remanded in custody.