Man avoids jail over child porn

A NEWTOWN man avoided jail on Tuesday after pleading guilty to disturbing child porn offences.

But Tristan Prowse, 26, will have to do 250 hours of community work and spend the next 15 years on the sex offenders register after his appearance in Geelong Magistrates’ Court.

The former Kardinia International College and La Trobe Uni student had thousands of illegal images and videos stored on hard drives when police from the child abuse taskforce raided his home in March.

He pleaded guilty to knowingly possessing and accessing child abuse material in court last week, and was sentenced by magistrate Peter Mellas on Tuesday.

The court heard one of the devices he was using to store the material had more than 5000 images on it.

Mr Mellas said reports showed Prowse was an imma- ture man whose life had “descended into cannabis use and social isolation” before his arrest. But efforts to reform his ways had reaped positive results, the magistrate said, and the defendant was now working and had been deemed a low-risk of reoffending, by one report.

Mr Mellas said he decided not to jail the man so this rehabilitation could continue. He put him on a corrections order for two years, with the community work to be completed in the first year.