Child porn cop's jailing drives call for tough stance on authority figures
Victorians who commit the acts they’re paid to prevent should be subjected to harsher sentencing laws, the head of the state’s victims of crime body has said, after a former policeman who abused his own granddaughter was jailed for four years.
Victims of Crime Commissioner Greg Davies said those who have seen at first hand the trauma caused by similar crimes – police officers, teachers, doctors, priests and the like – should be dealt with more severely.
It’s been revealed the jailed officer was working in one of Victoria Police’s family violence investigation units at the time of his offending and subsequent arrest.
“Nowadays people involved in family violence or child abuse should all be perfectly well aware of what's gone on and the damage that they’re causing,” Mr Davies said.
“I think hefty penalties are justified in these sorts of circumstances.
“I do think there is a case to say. 'well people who are absolutely aware of the damage that they’re offending could cause should perhaps be exposed to a harsher sentence regime than the average person'.”
Mr Davies said the former officer's “inadequate” four year sentence, revealed in Monday's Age, was indicative of wider failings in the sentencing of sex offenders.
“Once people look and say ‘how can he only get four years in prison for a police officer working in that sort of field’ that is a legitimate question,” he said.
“But in comparing it to child sex abuse on average it’s more than what someone usually gets.”
The jailed former veteran police officer took photographs of his granddaughter’s genitalia as she slept and distributedthe images online.
The photos were transmitted to other paedophiles who communicated in forums on the dark web and traded sickening images of child abuse and bestiality.
During one conversation in 2012, the former policeman encouraged another man to have sex with an eight-year-old child.
County Court judge Jane Campton heard the officer, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had previously been exposed to trauma which had taken a cumulative toll.
“It was conceded that your status as a serving member of the police force at the time of offending was relevant with respect to assessment of the gravity of offending, and was an aggravating feature in this case,” she said.
“Being posted in that unit, your level of insight into the harm caused by this type of offending should have been high.”
Inspector John Manley, from the Joint Anti-Child Explotation Team, said more raids to combat child sex abuse were expected as part of a renewed crackdown on what he said is the fastest growing crime in the world.
“Twenty people were arrested by Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police last month as part of a state-wide operation targeting those accessing online child abuse materials,” he said.
Ethical standards
It’s not the first time a police officer or person in a position of trust has broken the law by committing the very act they’re entrusted to eliminate.
In February, head of Victoria Police's ethical standards body Brett Guerin sensationally quit the force after an online scandal revealed he used an alias to make crude and inappropriate comments about people such as former police commissioner Christine Nixon.
Last month South Australian detective Hayley May Greenwood was jailed for at least 18 months for trafficking drugs.
Judge Julie McIntyre told the South Australian District Court that it was part of Greenwood's job to detect and apprehend people committing the very crime she was embroiled in and heard her drug associates had relationships with the very people her unit was investigating.
And in November, Australian Federal Police officer Ben Hampton was jailed for at least 11 months for selling secret intelligence information.
Deakin University criminologist Richard Evans said while there were people who sought certain employment with the immediate motivation to offend, such as the abuse of children by youth workers, most cases involved people who'd begun their careers with the best of intentions.
Dr Evans said this was most likely to occur in areas of the community most hidden from view such as aged care homes, banks and places where victims are unlikely to complain or be heard.
“This is a very deep betrayal of trust. In the court system its sentencing already does take this into account, it’s a significant factor in increasing penalties and when it's a calculated act by someone who does in fact know better ... it should be more severe.
“Mark Standen the former deputy commissioner of the NSW crime command was charged over the conspiracy to import precursor chemicals after it was created as a super police agency in the ’80s to combat corruption.
“If you can corrupt the deputy commissioner of the NSW crime command you can corrupt anyone.”