Andrew Mark Sheppeard

http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2011/03/18/child-porn-downloads-land-coast-man-in-court/

Child porn videos land man in court

Kieran Campbell | 18th March 2011

ANDREW Mark Sheppeard used his work computer to download more than a dozen videos of child pornography.

His searches for adult pornography landed him in trouble when he started to uncover illegal videos.

Sheppeard pleaded guilty yesterday in Maroochydore Magistrates Court to seven counts of using the internet to access child pornography, a charge with a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.

The court heard Sheppeard first searched the words “sex” and “porn” to find adult videos.

He noticed a lot of files included the acronym “PTHC”, which he began using to search for more videos. He said he did not know the acronym stood for “pre teen hard core”.

Police raided the Sunshine Coast business Sheppeard worked for on September 11, 2009 and a forensic analyst found 14 videos of child pornography that had been deleted from his computer. Sheppeard said some videos were of children as young as five but as soon as he opened it he would delete it.

Magistrate Bernadette Callaghan said Sheppeard’s crime was “serious” and “despicable”.

“The fact that you’ve just accessed it (child pornography) through the internet doesn’t make it a victimless crime,” Ms Callaghan said.

Sheppeard was sentenced to nine months imprisonment with immediate release and placed on a two year good behaviour bond.