A former TAFE teacher and university lecturer caught in an international child porn sting has been spared prison, after a judge decided it would cause too much hardship to his 94-year-old mother.
Peter Stanley Jarvis, 61, pleaded guilty after being one of 66 Australians arrested as part of last year's Operation Thunderer, the Australian arm of a worldwide operation beginning in Canada.
He was charged in November after officers from the Child Abuse Squad raided his home and seized laptops, hard drives, DVDs and CDs.
He pleaded guilty to possessing more than 1500 images and 167 videos of children being abused - including one image of a child having sex with a chicken.
In Perth's District Court on Wednesday, Judge Stephen Scott heard Jarvis was the sole carer for his aged mother, who suffered from a heart condition, arthritis and memory loss.
Jarvis himself is also partly disabled, having suffered a massive stroke in 2006, which left him depressed and socially isolated.
This is what led him to access adult and then child pornography, the court was told.
Defence lawyer Curt Hofmann said a prison term for Jarvis would mean his mother moving into a care home, which could lead to her health declining "maybe fatally".
Judge Scott said he agreed, by "the skinniest of margins".
"(The decision) is not without considerable disquiet. You are a lucky man, but in other ways you have a cross to bear as best you can," Judge Scott said.
Jarvis was one of several WA men - including more teachers, a priest and a policeman - caught after Toronto police infiltrated the client list of a child pornography website distributing child exploitation material worldwide.
Allegations of abuse of five West Australian children by a primary school teacher in the Goldfields region also emerged during the investigation.
