The Office of Public Prosecutions has brought an appeal against the sentence of a Sebastopol father who collected almost 200,000 illegal child abuse images.
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Rowan James Parkyn, 34, was sentenced to five months' imprisonment followed by a two-year community corrections order upon his release.
The OPP are appealing the sentence, which was handed down at the Ballarat Magistrates' Court in July after he pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography.
The appeal hearing started in the County Court of Victoria on Friday but a forensic psychologist, who assessed Parkyn, was unavailable to give evidence and it was adjourned.
Crown prosecutor Jason Harkess said Parkyn downloaded 287,178 child abuse images on three devices. Of those images, 193,005 were classified as illegal.
The children in the images were aged between three to 16-years-old.
Dr Harkess said Parkyn collected the material during a period of eight months before he was arrested in August last year.
Parkyn was married, living with his wife and three young children, employed as an aged care worker and studying nursing at the time.
Police found the child abuse images on three devices, which included two of Parkyn's mobile phones and his laptop.
This was after Parkyn's wife discovered some of the child pornography on his phone and told a friend who reported it to police.
Dr Harkess said Parkyn was arrested at his aged care workplace on August 22, last year, after his wife unlocked his mobile phone at home to show the images to police.
Parkyn said he downloaded the images from a website online which he had found "accidentally" eight months earlier, during an interview with police.
He told police he did not know what he was downloading until he opened the file.
Parkyn said he found he was sexually aroused and stimulated by the images after discovering the site.
Defence barrister Jarrod Williams submitted the appropriate penalty was a prison sentence of less than 12 months, combined with a community corrections order.
He said a community corrections order permitted a longer period of supervision, with a longer period of treatment, rather than a period of parole.
"This is a man who has very good prospects of rehabilitation, he has no prior offences, he has lost a great deal because of his offending," Mr Williams said.
"Any sentence of imprisonment is going to have a significant deterrent effect in this particular case."
Parkyn had lost his home, he was no longer with his wife and he had no contact with his children.
Mr Williams said Parkyn did not distribute or sell the child abuse images, he was not part of a network, the material was unavailable to vulnerable people and there was no high degree of planning.
"He didn't attempt to transmit the images or receive any benefit from selling the images," he said.
"We concede this offending is grave but it is not offending at the high end of the spectrum. The offending occurred for a relatively short period, it's not sophisticated. It's saving images on a hard drive.
"We accept there was a large amount of images but that is one factor."
Mr Williams said Parkyn had experienced a number of difficulties in his childhood and this was relevant to the trauma he experienced in his adult life which contributed to his offending.
Parkyn's defence will make further submissions after their witness, a forensic psychologist, gives her evidence. Barristers had raised mental health issues when the case was at the Magistrates' Court.
The prosecution will cross-examine the psychologist before providing their submissions on why Parkyn should receive more jail time.
Parkyn, who is in custody serving his five-month sentence, was remanded to re-appear next week.
The appeal hearing is part-heard before Judge Wendy Wilmoth.
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