A man who admitted to accessing child abuse material online spanning two decades despite being punished for a similar offence in 2002 has been sentenced to nearly 7.5 years' jail for having what is described as a "library" of such material.
Matthew James Carlyle Minson was sentenced by the ACT Supreme Court on Monday to an aggregate jail term of seven years and four months after pleading guilty to five counts of using a carriage service to obtain child abuse material.
He also pleaded guilty to one count of using a carriage service to access.
The court heard that in mid 2021, the Australian Federal Police detected child abuse material files being accessed using a peer-to-peer (P2P) program in which the user's internet protocol address was linked to Minson.
Police executed a search warrant at his Greenway home and seized three hard drives and two computers that contained nearly 16,000 videos and images classified as child abuse material.
The court heard the offence of accessing child abuse material occurred between April and May last year that also involved P2P software and a virtual private network (VPN), which encrypted his internet connection.
Following his arrest on July 1 last year, Minson, in his early 50s, admitted during a police interview that he had access to child abuse material via the internet intermittently for about 20 years.
Minson, who grew up in South Australia and worked as a cleaner in the aviation industry for 32 years including in Canberra, also admitted to possessing the material and described how he searched and used a VPN to hide his tracks.
The court heard that in 2002, he was convicted in NSW for a similar offence and his sentence included a bond and two years of supervision.
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On Monday, Justice David Mossop said there were "obviously significant volumes of material, including thousands of images and hundreds of hours of videos".
"The collection is in the nature of a library of child abuse material," Justice Mossop said.
"The nature of the acts portrayed are such that the children would have been significantly harmed. That would include significant long-term psychological harm."
Justice Mossop said Minson's efforts to conceal his access was a "moderate level of sophistication" that made it more difficult to identify him.
"It involved an active search for child abuse material," he said.
"No sentence other than one of full-time imprisonment would be appropriate."
Justice Mossop said jail would also impact Minson's wife, who has health complications and relied on him for support.
However, the judge said significant considerations in sentencing were deterring Minson and others from such offending.
He said Minson's prospect of rehabilitation was guarded because of his previous conviction and admission to accessing child abuse material for about 20 years.
"That assessment is reinforced by the offender's inability to explain his desire to access the material and what he reports as a sense of guilt in doing so," Justice Mossop said.
Minson was given a non-parole period of four years and five months scheduled to end in November 2025 after his total jail term was backdated to mid-2021 to account for time served in pre-sentence custody.
