00:01Well, the Australian Federal Police have provided some insight into how this painstaking
00:08investigation has unfolded.
00:11They initially charged the man in July of last year with eight offences relating to
00:17the production of child abuse material.
00:20But the AFP became alerted to this after a referral from a not-for-profit organisation
00:27in the United States, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.
00:34It became aware of a file that had been uploaded onto an online cloud service and then it alerted
00:41Australian authorities of this.
00:44That is when the investigation commenced in June of last year.
00:48To give you a sense of just how lengthy this process has been, investigators have been
00:53sifting through 2.4 million electronic files on the devices of the accused.
01:00They are not all necessarily child abuse material, but police are confident they are close to
01:06concluding their investigation.
01:10We heard from the AFP Detective Superintendent Luke Needham, who had this message for parents
01:17and families who may fear the worst.
01:19The first message I would like to send is I would like them to know that the AFP is meticulously
01:24reviewing the files in this matter.
01:27The offending is quite concerning, but I would like to let families and their victims know
01:33that we are only weeks away from coming and speaking with them and we just ask for their
01:39patience in this time.
01:40We understand that this is going to be a traumatic experience for them, but we have trained professionals
01:48ready to come and speak to the impacted families and that is going to happen very soon.
01:55So I think it is important for the community to be aware that at this stage of the investigation,
02:00the AFP has no evidence of any sexual assault taking place in regards to this matter.
02:06It was a brief hearing at the Parramatta local court this morning where those additional
02:11129 charges were laid.
02:13It does bear noting a non-publication order is in place, which prevents the identification
02:19of the accused.
02:21It also prevents the publication of any details that might reveal where he previously worked.
02:26But we know of those charges that have been laid an additional 68 counts of production
02:32of child abuse material, 29 counts of filming a person engaged in a private act without consent,
02:39and 11 counts of aggravated use of a child under the age of 14 to produce child abuse material.
02:46The maximum penalty for some of those new charges is 20 years imprisonment.
02:52He now faces a total of 137 charges.
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