A remorseless Indian paedophile Uber Eats driver has been jailed for 30 years in Tasmania for coercing more than 100 victims as young as 10 into sending him child abuse material.
Karan Kumar, 34, was sentenced by Supreme Court of Tasmania Justice Kate Cuthbertson on Friday after previously pleading guilty to almost 100 child sex offences at both state and federal levels, including 67 counts of engaging in sexual activity with a child using a carriage service.
The bridging visa holder will be eligible for parole after serving 18 years, but will be deported back to India on his release, Ms Cuthbertson noted in sentencing. He will also be placed on the sex offender register for 25 years.
The court heard Kumar lied about his age and gender on fake Instagram and Snapchat accounts, and used threats and offers of money, vapes and a PlayStation to coerce his male and female victims into sending him explicit images or performing sex acts online, The Examiner and The Mercury reported.
He then used a mobile phone to screen-record live-streamed child abuse material involving more than 100 children before he was eventually caught in 2023 after a victim’s mother called police. The material was described as “depraved and revolting” in court.
Kumar’s offending began in 2018 and continued despite him coming to the attention of Queensland Police in 2021 over a fake social media account purporting to belong to an 11-year-old boy.
When a search warrant was finally carried out at the Hobart home he shared with his wife, police found 551 child abuse material videos on his phone and laptop and a Snapchat account in the name of a teenage boy which Kumar admitted he used to elicit child abuse material.
Some of the screen-recorded footage included Kumar’s face, and incoming calls from family members, and prosecutors described the charges and evidence as “breathtaking in their volume”.
Ms Cuthbertson told the court Kumar had shown no remorse and had not taken any rehabilitatory steps, and noted offending like his was part of the reason for the government’s under-16s social media ban.
“No child and no family should have to deal with the aftermath of such heinous conduct,” she said in sentencing.
The court heard Kumar has been disowned by his family in India.
Header image: The Supreme Court of Tasmania.
