A Sydney man caught with child pornography images told a court he aspired to a career in law enforcement, particularly child protection, and wanted to ''desensitise himself''.
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Acting Chief Justice Richard Refshauge sentenced Meaad Yazarlou on Wednesday to two years, with six months served in weekend jail and the remainder suspended.
Yazarlou had pleaded guilty to charges of using a carriage service to access child pornography and possessing child pornography.
Police raided the 25-year-old's house last year and seized a computer and external hard-drive.
Investigators later found more than 1000 images and videos on the devices falling within Australian National Victim Image Library's child abuse scale. Most of them were within the category covering animated or Anime material, considered ''pseudo child pornography''. But the judge said this material was still illegal and degrading. Of greater concern were 49 images and some videos depicting real children, including toddlers.
The court heard Yazarlou had put together a compilation video of abuse images.
Justice Refshauge said the man's motivation was a ''problematic issue''. Yazarlou told a psychiatrist and the court he made the video and watched it regularly to ''desensitise'' himself in the hopes of making a career in law enforcement.
''It seems to me to be completely mistaken to suggest that access to such material could or indeed should desensitise one to it,'' the judge said. But Yazarlou received glowing character references, including from a referee who told the court she would have no problem leaving her children in his care.
The judge took into account the defendant's age, his early plea of guilty and his full co-operation with authorities.
Yazarlou, who had no prior convictions of any sort, was assessed as a low risk of reoffending.
''There is no doubt, as I say, and as Mr Yazarlou acknowledged, that these offences area serious,'' Justice Refshauge said.
The judge warned that but for the man's age and that most of the material was ''pseudo child pornography'' a full-time jail term would have been inevitable.Yazarlou will be on a good-behaviour order for the duration of the sentence, with a condition to undertake psychological testing as required.