A former New South Wales police officer, Luke Braden Taylor, 31, has admitted to possessing substantial volumes of child abuse material, some of which was described as “highly depraved,” on five different occasions. Taylor’s actions and subsequent court appearance have raised serious concerns regarding his conduct.
Taylor first encountered such disturbing material during his tenure as a police constable in Sydney’s Northern Beaches. In accordance with police protocol, he would forward these cases to detectives for further investigation. However, he revealed to Parramatta District Court that his professional encounters sparked a personal curiosity about the nature of the content he was dealing with.
“In my role, I was often involved in most aspects of the investigations I attended,” Taylor explained in court. “I realize it’s not an excuse, but my curiosity got the better of me.”
This curiosity ultimately led him to engage in conversations on the messaging platform Kik, where he accessed folders containing sexual images and videos of children, including some as young as 12 weeks old.
“I was just curious in nature, which I know isn’t an excuse, but yeah.”
His curiosity led him to a chat on the messaging app Kik, where he clicked links to folders full of sexual imagery and videos of children, some of them as young as 12 weeks old.
One of these folders was more than 19 gigabytes in size – taking up about as much hard drive space as an ultra-HD feature film.
That folder contained “1000 images of highly depraved content”, crown prosecutor Edward McGinness told the court.
But Taylor said he only viewed a small number of files before quickly deleting the app they were visible on, never downloading them.
“It was never for the purpose of sexual gratification, looking at the material,” he said.
“Its still not acceptable, but it was a curiosity, not to fulfil sexual desires or anything like that.”
The 31-year-old testified he was “disappointed in (himself)” each time he viewed the files, with his barrister Ann Bonnor relaying “he stopped because he felt sick about viewing the material” in her submission to the sentencing hearing.
But similar cases Taylor encountered in the line of duty would reignite his curiosity four more times over the next two-and-a-half years.
Each time, he re-entered the Kik chat, clicked on a link to view a small amount of abuse material and deleted the app, he told the court.
Although testifying he has no sexual interest in children, McGinness submitted Taylor’s actions could not be explained by curiosity alone.
“You accept it has to be a quite a strong desire to overcome that sick feeling,” McGinness told Taylor.
“Yes, yes,” the former constable replied.
Taylor’s explanation was poorly elaborated and he had not explored his sexuality well enough to rule out an interest in children, McGinness said.
He also continued to offend despite, as a police officer, knowing the seriousness of his actions.
“You need to be alive to the very real possibility that you may be spending some time in custody,” Judge Karen Robinson told Taylor as the hearing concluded.
Taylor is scheduled to be sentenced on June 19.
