Dawesville man (28) sentenced to 18 months prison for having child exploitation material

Zander Knoetze (28) was caught with the images in his possession during a search by police of his parent’s home in Dawesville on October 20, 2015.

The computer technician and salesman pleaded guilty to possession of child exploitation material and possessing or copying an indecent or obscene article on May 6 this year.

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In his sentencing remarks, Judge Bruce Goetze described Knoetze as having an inappropriate interest in children and high social anxiety.

Knoetze had in his possession images of children aged from two to 14 being sexually abused.

He also had videos of women engaged in bestiality.

Knoetze’s Firefox history showed he had searched for graphic images of young children.

The court heard that Knoetze moved to Australia from South Africa when he was 25, three years ago.

His visa expired two months ago.

Judge Goetze said it seemed to him that Knoetze had a broad ranging interest in adult pornography, but also pornography relating to children and girls.

Knoetze denied having paedophilic interests when he took part in a court ordered psychological report.

The report found that Knoetze has sexually deviant behaviour due to lack of relationships outside of his immediate family and church groups.

Judge Goetze refuted Knoetze’s claim that he did not have paedophilic interests.

He pointed out that Knoetze had downloaded child pornography and explored bestiality.

“The pre-sentence report says this was inadvertent, but that doesn’t seem to me to be right given the search fields that you looked for,” he said.

Judge Goetze gave Knoetze a 25 per cent reduction in his sentence for an early plea of guilty.

“If you’d accepted the full extent of your offending, that is, an interest in young girls then that would have been more,” he said.

Knoetze was also fined $2000 and will be eligible for parole.