A former QANTAS flight attendant has been jailed over a giant haul of child abuse material police discovered at his home in 2024.
Ian Douglas Snelson appeared before Perth District Court judge Linda Black on Tuesday 1st July where he was sentenced to 46 months imprisonment.
At a previous appearance he pleaded guilty to nine Commonwealth and State offences. His jail term was back dated to July last year when he was first arrested. He will be eligible for parole in May 2026. Later this month he will return to court to answer seven more charges, including drug offences.
The 57-year-old was accused of sending 4538 files of child abuse material via a cloud based service to a network of contacts around the world that he regularly spoke to. It was alleged that he used platforms including Grindr, WhatsApp and Telegram.
Police also found a laptop at his home with that contained multiple videos of sexual abuse against children that were described by prosecutors as ‘category one materials’ – the most serious type of materials, and included videos of bestiality.
Judge Black said the men Snelson was communicating with were more than likely to be amongst those abusing children.
“You are communicating with them in ways that encourages them to do the very sorts of things to their children that you might only fantasise,” she said.
“By sharing and engaging in these fantasies with these other men, it is very likely that at least some of those men will go on to then abuse their own children.
“The fact that a man, who’s obviously intelligent enough as you, could fail to appreciate that you were harming children and very young children by your exchanging your fantasies and the things that turned you on is just beyond me.” her comments reported by The West Australian.
Judge Black said that there was clear link between men like Snelson viewing offensive material, and the abuse of children.
“These kids on these videos are real,” Judge Black said.
“They’re not some fantasy you’ve made up in your own mind and written about — they are little kids who have no choice in what’s been happening to them.
“These are little kids who are being hurt, their innocence taken away from them, who are frightened, and you were deriving pleasure from it.”
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