Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR-14-00914
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONSv
BRETT LE GASSICK
---
JUDGE: / HER HONOUR JUDGE GAYNORWHERE HELD: / Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE: / 12 August 2014
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: / DPP v Le Gassick
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: / [2014] VCC
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---
Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:
---
APPEARANCES: / Counsel / SolicitorsFor the Office of Public Prosecutions / Ms M Brown
For the Accused / Mr S Pearce
VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT REPORTING SERVICE
565 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne - Telephone 9603 2401
HER HONOUR:
1 Brett Le Gassick, you have pleaded guilty before me to 23 charges laid under the Commonwealth Criminal Code. They being one charge of using carriage service to procure persons under 16 years. Two charges of using a carriage service to - excuse me, I have made a mistake immediately. I am so sorry Mr Le Gassick. One charge - The carriage service that is Victorian.
2 Two charges of using a carriage service to access child pornography material. Eight charges of attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual intercourse in your presence. Five charges of causing a child to engage in sexual activity in your presence. Two charges of attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual activity in your presence. Five charges of causing a child to engage in sexual intercourse in your presence.
3 You have also pleaded guilty to two charges under the Victorian Crimes Act. They being one charge of producing child pornography, and one charge of knowingly possess child pornography. The very detailed prosecution summary of facts is exhibited with these sentencing remarks.
4 In short compass, the offending took place between April 2009 and January 2004. Charge 1 is a rolled up charge whereby between 5 April 2009 and 20 November 2013 you procured 54 individual children to engage in sexual activity. Essentially this related to you engaging on online chats to under aged girls in the Philippines, where in explicitly sexual terms you asked them to engage in sexual activity.
5 On one occasion, detailed as an example, you masturbated to the point of ejaculation while engaging in sexualised chat with an 11 year old girl and showing her your penis over the webcam during the exchange.
6 You also forwarded monies to accounts in the Philippines in 56 international transfers via Western Union accounts controlled by you between May 2011 and January 2014 for a total of $3,676.90 which were payments for online live sex shows to be performed by the children with whom you had negotiated.
7 Chat log conversations retrieved from your computer revealed that before the money was transferred, you would negotiate the price and the activity you wanted the children to perform regularly expressing a preference for young girls and asking them whether they would meet you in person and whether they would have sex with you, if you visited the Philippines.
8 Charge 2 relates to screen shot images you took of the children during the live sex shows, which you saved to your computer. These images described or showed children engaging in sexual activity or indecent sexual acts.
9 Those images and videos were categorised by the prosecution into four levels. There were 248 video images and videos depicting nudity or erotic posing with no sexual activity. There were 46 images and videos showing solo masturbation by a child, or non-penetrative sexual activity between children. There were five images and videos depicting non-penetrative sexual activity between children and adults and there were 13 images and videos depicting penetrative sexual activity between children, or between children and adults. They comprising at levels one to four, graduating in seriousness on the scale commonly used in order to classify such material.
10 Charges 3 and 4, accessing child pornography arise from analysis of your recent internet browsing history, revealing you had accessed a number of child pornography sites, and searched the internet via Google for items explicitly describing particular under aged sexual activity. You accessed child pornography between 20 February 2010 and 26 January 2014.
11 Charges 5, 6, 7, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23 and 24 are charges of either causing a child to engage in sexual intercourse outside Australia in your presence, or attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual intercourse outside Australia in your presence.
12 They relate to online negotiations by you with another party in the Philippines organising a sex show featuring under aged children. Those charges of attempt related to situations where you paid money, but the show was not staged, and your money effectively taken.
13 Each of those shows was to involve sexual penetration of the children involved. However, on other occasions, your negotiations bore fruit, and the sex shows were performed with you directing the children to perform certain acts involving penetration, such as one of the participants placing a finger in the vagina of the other participant or an object such as a pencil.
14 On average you paid about $30 for a one hour show, although sometimes it was less, and the shows would last from about 20 minutes to about two hours. Other charges arising from the sex shows also led to charges of causing a child to engage in sexual activity outside Australia in your presence, they being Charges 8, 10, 12, 14 and 18 on the indictment, or attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual activity outside Australia, they being Charges 9 and 22, where you negotiated and paid for sex shows which were ultimately not performed. The log chat conversations revealed the type of sexual performance envisaged which in those cases did not involve actual penetration.
15 Some of the charges of causing a child to engage in sexual intercourse outside Australia, or causing a child to engage in sexual activity outside Australia, and the attempts related to particular girls who were identified by a first name.
16 Occasionally an adult woman was involved, or an adolescent aged 16 or older, but every sex show, attempted or actualised did involve at least one child aged under 16 and often more than one. Overall, your offending involved 83 separate victims, the majority of them being aged between 10 and 12 years. A few were aged 14 or 15, and one four year old was involved on an occasion.
17 The maximum penalty for procuring a child for sexual activity is 15 years imprisonment. The maximum penalty for production of child pornography is ten years imprisonment. The maximum penalty for accessing child pornography using a carriage service was ten years imprisonment where that offence was committed prior to 2010, and thereafter the maximum was increased to 15 years imprisonment.
18 The maximum penalty for attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual intercourse in the presence of a defendant is 20 years imprisonment. The maximum penalty for causing a child to engage in sexual activity in the presence of a defendant is 15 years imprisonment. The maximum penalty for attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual activity in the presence of a defendant is 15 years imprisonment. The maximum penalty for causing a child to engage in sexual intercourse in the presence of a defendant is 20 years imprisonment, and the maximum penalty for knowingly possessing child pornography is five years imprisonment.
19 I now turn to your personal circumstances. You are 43 years of age, live alone and have not partnered. You are one of two children, having a younger brother who is about two years younger than you. You had a difficult childhood, as your father was an alcoholic who was often absent from home, and both you and your brother were subjected to emotional, verbal and physical abuse by your mother.
20 You also frequently witnessed frequent arguing between your parents who separated when you were about 12. Your brother has developed an ongoing depressive condition. You completed Year 10 at secondary school, but left because of incessant bullying which began when you entered high school, whereby you were singled out by a particular group of students who regularly taunted you, harassed you verbally and physically, and on occasion, forced you into toilets and made you display your genitals which were then again the subject of taunts, and which harrowing experiences overall left you with feelings of inadequacy that have pervaded your life ever since.
21 On leaving school, you undertook an accounting course at TAFE for two years, but you were unable to find work. Between 1993 and 1996, you worked as a storeman/truck driver in which job you were also bullied primarily for your lack of experience, and were taunted for being a virgin.
22 You resigned from that job in 1996 because of the bullying inflicted upon you. You then began tertiary study, and between 1996 and 1998 undertook and completed a computer science course, and were employed between 1998 and 2003 by an IT consulting company. That company eventually closed, and you were retrenched.
23 You then returned to study on a fulltime basis, undertaking a graduate diploma and qualifying as a secondary school teacher. Your counsel informed me that you enjoyed the study very much, and the placements that you undertook in the course of your diploma. You felt you had some talents in this area, but ultimately never worked in it.
24 It appears according to your counsel that your pervading sense of inadequacy had effected you to the point that you would become terrified at the prospect of success, and so whilst achieving very high marks during your course, struggled in the last semester when it looked as if the end was nigh, and you were in fact going to succeed, and barely managed to pass.
25 In 2007, you were working fulltime at an IT company when you were arrested in April of that year, on charges of using a carriage to transmit objectionable material and knowingly possess child pornography. You received an effective sentence of 15 months with a non-parole period of four months imprisonment. This is your only prior criminal matter, but it is a serious and most relevant one in so far as sentencing for the matters before this court are concerned.
26 Prior to your arrest, but before the hearing of the charges in December 2007, you attended upon psychologist Dr Sophie Reeds. A copy of her report dated 9 December 2007 being tendered on the plea. You attended 14 sessions with her. Dr Reeves applied psychological testing which she said revealed a personality style she described as "Characterised by avoidant and dependent personality features. Individuals with these characteristics, typically remain detached and isolated and do not have close friends. They view themselves as weak and inadequate and strongly wished to be liked by others, but nevertheless have a great sense of rejection. As a result, they tend to experience social situations negatively, seeming apprehensive and nervous".
27 She said you reported a sexual interest in girls aged between 11 to 14, and met the criteria for hebephilia. She stated "It appears that his internet child pornography used as functions both as a coping mechanism for him and as a sexual outlet for him occurring in a context of feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, and perceived inability to establish sexual relationships with adult women, and a background of family instability and bullying by his peers".
28 She said that whilst you progressed and engaged well in your sessions with her, and made significant progress, that given the complexity and chronicity of your sexual problems, felt you needed to continued interventions spanning a period of at least 12 months involving cognitive behavioural relapse intervention framework. Aversive therapy to assist in reducing deviant fantasies she said would also be important in reducing your chances of offending in the future. Needless to say, the sentence you received attended to none of those difficulties.
29 Dr Reeves described you as a gregarious, yet sensitive, emotionally immature man, with a number of psychological difficulties including sexual problems, intimacy, deficits arising from a number of aversive experiences in your childhood and adolescence that appeared to have impacted significantly upon you.
30 You were released from gaol after serving the minimum term, that is four months imprisonment, and because of the length of that sentence, never undertook the sex offenders' program. You did not seek, nor was it a condition of your parole that you seek further psychological assistance, which it is quite clear you very sorely needed. You apparently recommenced re-offending shortly your release from prison in 2008.
31 You obtained work as a truck driver, which employment you maintained until your arrest for these matters, living in the meantime, an extremely isolated life with no social outlets it would seem, except for contact with members of your family.
32 The prosecutor pointed out that the records show you use the internet virtually every day and it would seem that your life, from the years following your release from prison, until your re-arrest, essentially comprise of work and internet activity.
33 Initially after being arrested by police in relation to these matters following a raid upon the house that you own and lived in alone in Brunswick, that is in relation to the matters that have brought you before this court, you conducted a no comment record of interview, but thereafter returned and engaged in a second record of interview comprising full and frank admissions as to your offending. You also began attending on psychologist Don Burnard whose report was tendered on the plea.