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A 67-year-old Franklin man caught with thousands of files containing child abuse material has confessed to vile crimes that date back nearly a decade. Stephen John Barber pleaded guilty in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday to six charges of possessing or accessing child abuse material. Agreed facts tendered to the court show that Barber’s offending began in April 2011, when he started accessing what was then known as child pornography. The Australian Federal Police discovered what he had been up to nine years later, when investigators identified his IP address as having accessed child abuse material on the BitTorrent file-sharing service. Following an investigation by the ACT Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team, officers seized a computer, two hard drives and two flash drives from Barber in April 2020. A subsequent analysis of the five devices revealed that they contained a total of 4670 child abuse videos and pictures. Among the most graphic files were 941 depicting penetrative sexual acts and 224 showing sadism, bestiality, humiliation or torture. According to the agreed facts, Barber was arrested during the April search of his home and granted police bail, with conditions including a ban on possessing any device capable of accessing the internet. However, he was found to have accessed seven more child abuse material files using a mobile phone in November, when he was taken into custody again and refused bail. After Barber entered his guilty pleas on Thursday morning, Magistrate James Lawton committed him to the ACT Supreme Court for sentence. The offender remains behind bars on remand ahead of his first appearance in the superior court next week. For faster access to the latest Canberra news, download The Canberra Times app for iOS and Android.
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A 67-year-old Franklin man caught with thousands of files containing child abuse material has confessed to vile crimes that date back nearly a decade.
Stephen John Barber pleaded guilty in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday to six charges of possessing or accessing child abuse material.
Agreed facts tendered to the court show that Barber’s offending began in April 2011, when he started accessing what was then known as child pornography.
The Australian Federal Police discovered what he had been up to nine years later, when investigators identified his IP address as having accessed child abuse material on the BitTorrent file-sharing service.
Following an investigation by the ACT Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team, officers seized a computer, two hard drives and two flash drives from Barber in April 2020.
A subsequent analysis of the five devices revealed that they contained a total of 4670 child abuse videos and pictures.
Among the most graphic files were 941 depicting penetrative sexual acts and 224 showing sadism, bestiality, humiliation or torture.
According to the agreed facts, Barber was arrested during the April search of his home and granted police bail, with conditions including a ban on possessing any device capable of accessing the internet.
After Barber entered his guilty pleas on Thursday morning, Magistrate James Lawton committed him to the ACT Supreme Court for sentence.
The offender remains behind bars on remand ahead of his first appearance in the superior court next week.
Stephen John Barber pleaded guilty to a string of charges in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday. Picture: Karleen Minney
