A paedophile senior Victoria Police officer has been jailed for at least five years after being caught with almost 20,000 sickening child abuse files.
Former senior constable Aaron Hawley, 51, who worked as a cop for 11 years, appeared in the County Court in Melbourne on Friday after pleading guilty to possessing, soliciting, producing and transmitting almost 20,000 videos and images.
Judge frank Gucciardo said a “specific deterrence is significant here” due to to Hawley’s role as a cop, and described his conduct as “abhorrent” in sentencing him to a maximum eight years and nine months’ imprisonment with a five year non-parole period, the Herald Sun reported.
“These are not victimless crimes,” the judge said, and placed him on the Sex Offenders Register for life.
The Sunshine-based crime scene officer was arrested in 2023, and police then found 19,856 files on several phones and USBs, including one in his police station locker.
Hawley was granted bail but went on to commit more offences, including sending material depicting a four-year-old girl being abused in a group chat on an app where admitted he was married and the father of two children.
He sent images with captions including “age is just a number enjoy child sex” and “embrace pedophilia bald is better”, and previously described himself in another group chat as a “proud pedo”.
Hawley pleaded guilty to seven charges in February last year, and the court was shown a message he sent to another paedophile saying: “I can’t wait for my boys to have their own, hope they have girls”, 7News reported.
“We should go into business, open up a pedo child minding company,” he said in another message.
The court heard at the time his wife had caught him with images of young girls on his phone four years before he was eventually arrested, but still stands by him and submitted a character reference.
When police raided his home and asked if he knew why they were there, he said: “Yep. Child exploitation.”
Hawley was put in protective custody while awaiting sentencing.
Header image: Alan Hawley (7News).
