Father of three held after child sex alert

INTERNATIONAL child protection agencies have combined with Queensland police to arrest a man who was allegedly sharing images of himself engaging in sexual acts with his three young children.

Townsville detectives swarmed a home in Charters Towers on Friday afternoon, taking the three children aged under five into care, while officers arrested the man.

To protect the identity of the children, the alleged of- fender cannot be named. Taskforce Argos, in conjunction with detectives from the Child Protection Investigation Unit ( CPIU) began an investigation into the 32- year- old in April.

At the time, there was not enough evidence to charge him.

CPIU officer in charge detective Senior Sergeant Dave Miles said the breakthrough came when an international agency contacted Taskforce Argos on Friday.

“In early April, as a result of investigations undertaken by Taskforce Argos, the Townsville CPIU were alerted to an individual trying to engage in child exploitation material ( CEM) online,” he said.

“This individual was ident- ified as being in the Charters Towers area and as a result investigations commenced but there was not at that stage sufficient evidence to commence prosecution.

“Last Friday, May 12, Taskforce Argos were advised by international counterparts that during the investigations in their jurisdictions, they had encountered material that was allegedly related back to the male person in Charters Towers.

“That material indicated that contact child sex offences had occurred.

“As a result of that, investigators from the CPIU attended Charters Towers on Friday where we executed a search warrant at a residence. During the course of that, items of interest to the material located by our international counterparts was found.

“As a result of that, we removed three children from the home … simultaneously the suspect was taken into custody by Julia Creek police.”

Sen- Sgt Miles said there was potential for more arrests to come from the search in Charters Towers.

“Important for us is to identify where else these images have been and what other images are out there,” he said.

“This arrest demonstrates the fact that we are not dealing with a local issue, this is an international marketplace. Images that are looked at here in Australia can originate overseas.

“And here is a demonstration of an overseas agency identifying images from here in Australia.

“The fight against child exploitation can’t be done in isolation, it has got to be done with a global focus.”

The man has been charged with three counts of making CEM, one count of distributiung CEM, five counts of indecent dealing with a child, three counts of indecent acts and two counts of rape.

He has been held in custody and will be appearing in Townsville Magistrates Court again on July 6.