Richard James Tomerini: Bunbury man jailed for 14 months for downloading child exploitation material to phone

A Bunbury man has been jailed for possessing child exploitation material that he downloaded to his phone while participating in adult online chatrooms. Richard James Tomerini, 70, was sentenced to a 15-month jail term by the Bunbury District Court on Monday after previously pleading guilty to a charge of possessing child exploitation material. The court was told Tomerini was arrested on August 29 last year as part of a joint investigation by Australian Federal Police and WA’s joint anti-child exploitation team, dubbed Operation Tamworth. Tomerini’s arrest was one of many that resulted from the massive joint operation which saw 45 alleged offenders — ranging from students to a City of Stirling councillor — slapped with 149 charges relating to the access, possession, and distribution of child exploitation material. Among those charged were former City of Stirling councillor Keith Sargent, who was jailed for 14 months in May after pleading guilty to three charges, and former Education Department director of E-Learning and Business Systems Stephen Rakich, who was handed a 12-month jail term that was conditionally suspended for 12 months in March. Police identified Tomerini after investigating a report from the United States’ National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which alerted officers to a person in WA accessing child abuse material. Officers were quick to respond and raided Tomerini’s Withers home where JACET investigators found the explicit child abuse material on his phone. The device was seized by officers for further forensic examination, which uncovered images of prepubescent children, predominantly female, engaging in sexual activity with adults. The court was also told that Tomerini participated in several online chatrooms, which District Court Judge Charlotte Wallace believed in part allowed Tomerini to access the material. “You didn’t act completely along in your access to this child exploitation material because you must have been in contact with other like-minded persons in relation to your ability to obtain this material,” she said. “You were using an adult sex chat online at the time which was moderated and on which users uploaded adult photos, and that while using the site you noticed someone had uploaded child exploitation material that hadn’t been deleted so you were able to download it on to your phone. “You claim that you deleted the images later, not knowing that they remained stored in a particular part of your phone.” A psychologist report that was submitted to the court stated Tomerini made a claim that he did not use the child exploitation material for sexual gratification, but instead simply liked the “innocence” and the “pretty faces” of the children depicted. However, the sexually explicit and graphic nature of the material seized by police prompted Judge Wallace to reject Tomerini’s claim. “If you were simply interested in looking at the innocent faces of children, you wouldn’t have downloaded the images and saved them to your device, some of which depict six, seven, eight-year old female children being sexually penetrated by adults,” she said. It was also submitted Tomerini had previously been convicted of sexually offending against a child in the 1980s but was not made a reportable offender at the time due to the legislation not being in place. While it was submitted that Tomerini had been engaging with a psychologist, Judge Wallace said the need for rehabilitation and active and meaningful engagement in sex offender programs was “paramount” for Tomerini. Tomerini was made a reportable offender and will be eligible for parole in late-March 2024.