A Seymour man who sexually assaulted a nine-year-old girl and had graphic child abuse photos on his phone has been sentenced in court.
Mark Andrew Vinden, 53, of Seymour, had pleaded guilty in Shepparton County Court to sexually assaulting a child under the age of 16, using a carriage service to access child abuse material and possessing or controlling child abuse material obtained or accessed using a carriage service.
Vinden inappropriately touched a nine-year-old girl at his Seymour home on March 24, 2022.
He stopped when the victim asked him to, and her mother said she looked “shocked, angry and upset” when she got home before she told her mother that Vinden had touched her inappropriately.
When interviewed by police, Vinden denied any sexual contact with the victim.
After Vinden came to police attention through an investigation into a website used to access child abuse material, police seized two mobile phones and an imitation firearm when they searched his home on May 10, 2023.
One of the phones contained 449 child abuse material files of a “graphic and distressing nature”.
Of those, one image and 168 videos were evaluated as category one, or the worst under the Interpol Baseline Scale, and 13 images and 267 videos were evaluated as category two.
The videos ranged from nine seconds to 41 minutes.
Files containing child abuse material were also found in an app disguised as a calculator; however, police were unable to extract them without altering their metadata.
In sentencing Vinden, Judge Robyn Harper said the “transfer from online to real life offending” was a “significant breach of trust”.
She said there was an element of victim-blaming after the fact, which was “no excuse for your conduct”.
Judge Harper told Vinden the child abuse material files disguised in a calculator app showed “secrecy, cunning and organisation on your part”.
Judge Harper said the nature of the material was “depraved”, which was of greater concern than the number of images, and many victims were harmed in the production of the material.
“These are crimes which cause real and lasting harm to the children depicted,” she said.
“They are subjected to horrific abuse for the gratification of those who access and possess the images.”
Judge Harper acknowledged Vinden had been diagnosed within the extreme range of clinical depression, and his mental health was likely to deteriorate in custody.
She also acknowledged Vinden was often bullied while in school.
Judge Harper noted Vinden was a diagnosed paedophile who hadn’t yet engaged in any treatment, despite having “ample opportunity to do so”.
“So many children have been impacted by your offending,” she said.
“You need to understand the courts and community will not tolerate this behaviour.”
Vinden was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison, but will be released after two years and six months under a recognisance release order of $1000.
Conditions under the order include that Vinden must be of good behaviour for three years, engage in treatments and programs for sex offenders, engage with corrections and not leave Victoria or Australia.
If he does not meet these conditions, he will have to pay $1000 and serve the remaining one year and three months of his prison sentence.
Vinden must comply with sex offender reporting obligations for the rest of his life.
He was also fined $1000 for a summary offence of possessing an imitation firearm.