The former deputy mayor of one of Perth's biggest city councils has been jailed for possessing more than 200 images and videos of children, some as young as five, being sexually abused.
Keith Charles Sargent, 45, had pleaded guilty to three charges laid after police raided his home and discovered the child abuse material on his electronic devices last year.
Sargent, who had been a councillor at the City of Stirling for 11 years and had at one point served as deputy mayor, immediately resigned.
The District Court was told on Tuesday that Sargent had for a long time been addicted to adult pornography which his lawyer, Rosie Myers, said he "used predominantly as a stress relief".
She said he largely became desensitised to what he was seeing and when he came across the child abuse material he used that to deal with the stresses and pressures in his life, including his work on the council.
The court heard the material predominantly featured males aged between 12 and 16, although images and videos of girls and children as young as five years old were also discovered.
Ms Myers said Sargent viewed his arrest as a positive, because he was now receiving psychological counselling to deal with issues from his childhood that he had previously avoided.
'High level of perversion'
Judge David MacLean accepted that Sargent was remorseful and ashamed for what he had done, and that at the time he was stressed and depressed.
However, he said an immediate jail term was appropriate because the offences involved the serious abuse of vulnerable children.
Judge MacLean said Sargent, by downloading the material, had contributed to the demand for the production of the abuse material, in which he said actual children were violated.
"The material showed a high level of perversion and debauchery and it represents the serious abuse of vulnerable children," Judge MacLean said.
The court heard one of the videos lasted for about an hour, while other material appeared to be decades old, something which Judge MacLean said highlighted just how long such material circulates on the internet.
He sentenced Sargent to 14 months in jail and he will have to serve half the term before he can be released on parole.
