A Canberra man who claimed hackers may have planted child pornography on his laptop because he was a right-wing "Donald Trump supporter" has now pleaded guilty to downloading and possessing the graphic material.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Police officers had uncovered some 4300 explicit images and 83 videos during a search at Mackenzie Sutton's Nicholls home on December 2, 2016.
Police believe the thousands of files were downloaded in November 2016 alone. Of the files inspected during the search, police concluded all were of girls under 10 years old, and mostly under 5.
On the laptop in Sutton's bedroom, police found TOR software - which encrypts and anonymises a person's internet activity and is often used for searching the "Dark Web" - on the laptop, as well as a program used to clean computers of their search history.
Officers also found traces of child pornography thumbnails, that indicated TOR software had recently been used to download files, documents tendered to the court said.
Sutton denied to police he had used TOR and claimed he did not know how it came to be installed on his laptop. But police had noted he was familiar with TOR terminology and the material it could be used to access.
When they searched an external hard drive attached to the computer, police found the thousands of images and videos of child pornography material, in a file path that ended in "TOR browser".
Questioned by police at the time, Sutton, 36, denied knowledge of the images and videos and suggested his right-wing ideologies and support for US President-Elect Donald Trump may have made him a target for hackers.
But in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday, Sutton pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and using a carriage service to access child pornography.
Magistrate Bernadette Boss committed the man to the ACT Supreme Court for sentence. The matter will next appear in the higher court in February.
Sutton did not apply for bail and was remanded in custody.
