A Sydney chef who was found with disturbing chats and thousands of pieces of child abuse material on personal devices has avoided jail for the disgusting acts.
Jake Caldwell-Edwards, 30, faced Sydney District Court on four child abuse material charges.
Agreed facts revealed the following troubling conversation on the chat application Kik, while Caldwell-Edwards was aged 28 and went by the user name Dragon Boy:
User: You like that I’m 14?
Dragon Boy: yeah aha.. would love to hook up with a younger guy
Another conversation went:
User: You done anything with young boys?
Dragon Boy (offender): “Yes a few... have you?
User: Yes … youngest was 12, then to 16.
Reading from agreed facts, Judge Gina O’Rourke said police found 3608 pieces of child abuse material on one phone when they arrested him at his home in the Sydney suburb of Seaforth on November 3, 2020.
Also seized were several Dropbox folders with 16gb of child abuse material.
Conversations either about children or with people Caldwell-Edwards thought were children were also discovered.
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Caldwell-Edwards was arrested under Operation Arkstone, Australia's largest online child abuse probe.
Judge O’Rourke said there was no evidence of receiving financial payments for the material, that there seemed to be little planning involved and that Caldwell-Edwards acted alone.
She said a troubled upbringing involving parents who were heroin addicts and alcoholics led him to develop several mental health issues.
The court heard Caldwell-Edwards realised he was bisexual at aged 16 but never accepted it, and that his offending was influenced by his own sexual experiences with men when he was younger.
A psychological report said he used “sexual acting out” to release stress.
He was a respected Sydney chef until he never returned to work the day his crimes were detailed in the media, the court heard.
Judge O’Rourke accept the 30-year-old’s contrition and remorse, but said the “evil trade he was participating in … must not be repeated.”
Caldwell-Edwards was sentenced for four Commonwealth offences he had pleaded guilty to: using a carriage service to access or transmit child abuse material, possessing or controlling child abuse material, using a carriage service to solicit child abuse material and using a carriage service to transmit child pornography material.
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The latter charge was dated 16 July 2016, while the most recent was committed in November 2020.
Judge O’Rourke sentenced Caldwell-Edwards to two years and six months’ jail, to be released immediately on a two-year recognisance order.
Under the order, he must be supervised by Community Corrections, not travel overseas, not commit further offences, continue rehab and forfeit the phones and computers the offending material was found on.
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