A 62-year-old Numurkah man, who was found with more than 20,000 child exploitation photos and videos in his possession, has been sentenced to jail in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court.
Terry Gregory Woudstra pleaded guilty on Tuesday, February 20 in the Shepparton court to a count of intentionally producing child abuse material and a count of possessing child abuse material.
Police raided Woudstra’s residence on February 15 last year, during which he agreed to provide access to devices.
At the time, he admitted to taking screenshots after zooming in on the images he’d accessed but said he didn’t get any sexual gratification from them and didn’t know it was wrong to access and possess the images.
Woudstra said he’d accessed many of the images on sites such as Flikr.
Upon searching the devices, police found 119,817 images and videos.
Of those, 20,265 unique images and 190 videos were evaluated as category one images or the worst under the Interpol Baseline Scale.
A further 199 images, 192 of which were original, and 27 videos were classified as category two.
The prosecution told the court the category one images and videos were “predominately prepubescent boys aged three to 10”, either naked or urinating and engaging in sex acts with adults.
The category two images were mostly boys aged between 13 and 15, either naked or urinating, including full nudity.
The prosecution said the former tour bus driver “was co-operative with police and made full admissions”.
Defence counsel admitted the charges constituted “serious offending” but noted Woudstra’s early guilty plea and no record of any previous offences and urged a prison term of 30 to 60 days combined with a lengthy corrections order that could involve a forensic behavioural program.
“I would submit that 63 years without conviction is something to take into consideration,” Woudstra’s defence counsel said.
“There are no allegations of distribution.
“The consequences of being apprehended have acted as a strong deterrent,” Woudstra’s defence counsel said.“
However, the prosecution reminded Magistrate Peter Dunn that each charge carried a maximum jail term of 10 years.
“This kind of behaviour feeds the industry of child abuse,” they said.
“Whatever way he has held it, he has fed that industry and kept it alive.”
Magistrate Dunn described the offences as “horrendous” and “horrible”.
“There’s a significant number of the worst category, category one,” he said.
“There are cases of children performing sex acts. Lives have been ruined.
“You cannot but feel for the ultimate victims.”
Magistrate Dunn sentenced Woudstra to 18 months in jail, with a non-parole period of six months.
“But for the plea of guilty, I would have sentenced you to a further term of imprisonment,” he said.