A Palmerston man, 35, charged with having child abuse material has been ordered to reside with his mother in Victoria after a magistrate said she was not satisfied he should be living with his children, a court has heard.
Nathan James Leask appeared via audio-visual link in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday charged with two counts of possessing child abuse material following a police operation on Thursday.
Mr Leask has not pleaded to the charges.
ACT Policing in a statement said members of the ACT joint anti-child exploitation team this month received information from the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation regarding the alleged peer-to-peer sharing of child abuse material.
After investigation by the team with help from other specialist units, including a sexual assault and child abuse and digital forensics teams, a search warrant was executed at a Palmerston home on Thursday.
Two personal computers and one external hard drive were seized.
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Police believe the devices contain thousands of videos and still images of child abuse material and allege they were in Mr Leask's possession.
"The items seized during the warrant will be forensically examined and further charges may be laid," police said.
In court, bail was applied for and it was not opposed with the only contentious issue between the legal parties being where the defendant resides.
After reading the related court material, special magistrate Margaret Hunter said: "I'm not satisfied you should be residing at Palmerston with two children in the house, given that I've just now read the material related to young children, who are similar age to your children."
Mr Leask was ordered to reside with his mother in Venus Bay, Victoria, and report to Inverloch Police Station every Wednesday.
Other bail conditions include he not be within 100m of any childcare centre, school or playground.
He must also not approach any international point of departure and notify the Australian Federal Police of any interstate travel lasting longer than 48 hours.
He is allowed access to only one mobile phone and can attend the Palmerston premises only once with police officers to collect his belongings.
The case returns to court on March 25.
