A MAN living in Armidale has admitted in court to producing and possessing child abuse material after detectives raided his house earlier this year.
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Stephen John Austin-Faint is being held in custody while he awaits trial for other matters, Armidale Local Court was told.
He appeared in court via video link on one charge of producing child abuse material and three counts of possessing it.
“I am instructed to enter pleas of guilty,” Legal Aid solicitor Wendy McAuliffe told the court, adding discussions were continuing about the facts.
“They’re not agreed as yet but there is no problem with them being tendered for the purposes of committal.”
They’re not agreed as yet but there is no problem with them being tendered for the purposes of committal.
- Legal Aid solicitor Wendy McAuliffe
Ms McAuliffe asked for the case to be committed to the district court in Lismore for sentencing, after his trial finishes in August.
Magistrate Michael Holmes asked police to gather a certificate detailing the category of severity scale of the child abuse material.
“These matters will consolidate with other matters you have at Lismore,” he told Austin-Faint.
“Bail is not applied for, bail’s refused.”
Detectives allege the 44-year-old was on bail when he was found in possession of the child abuse material during a raid in Dale Cr.
Following investigations, Armidale detectives executed a search warrant at the house about 3.15pm on February 18 and seized a laptop computer as well as a Huawei mobile phone.
According to police facts tendered on committal, in a preliminary examination of the laptop, “within a number of sub-folders within the ‘downloads’ folder, there were numerous image files and video files which depicted child sexual abuse”.
Police allege data from the computer shows the images were sourced and saved onto the computer between December, 2016, and February, 2017, when Austin-Faint was living in Armidale.
Police allege they found images, video files as well as child abuse material produced by Austin-Faint and found inside his bedroom.
He was arrested two days after the raid and allegedly told detectives he “had accessed child abuse material whilst ‘surfing’ on the internet”.