A DARLINGTON pensioner who uploaded 83 child pornography images and videos on a sharing website has pleaded guilty to child pornography offences.
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Stephen Roy Leishman, 56, now of the Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat, pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool County Court on Monday to six child pornography charges.
He previously refused to plead guilty to one of the offences in July last year, then failed to appear in court.
His bail was revoked, a warrant was issued and he was arrested in Melbourne on March 11 this year.
Leishman had spent 220 days in custody before Monday's plea hearing.
Judge John Smallwood was told that in mid 2013 an interstate law agency identified a hotmail account operated by Leishman and information was forwarded to Victoria Police.
On November 1 that year a warrant was executed at Leishman's home by Warrnambool police and other agencies and items were seized.
Leishman's offending relates to downloading images, logging on to a Russian image sharing website and then six times in April and May 2013 Leishman uploaded 83 files - 65 images and 27 videos - onto a sharing facility Sky Drive.
The majority of those images and videos were rated as category four, toward the most serious end of the five category rating scale.
Police also seized 239 images.
Leishman has prior convictions for sexual violence and stalking.
In 1984 he pushed a woman to the ground about midnight and kissed her above the genitals.
She escaped by grabbing his genitals.
In 1987 he was jailed in Queensland for six months after grabbing a 12-year-old girl.
Leishman also has prior convictions for stalking and offensive behaviour.
Barrister Jarrod Williams said Leishman was deeply ashamed and embarrassed by his offending. He said he lost a child to a snake bite in Queensland years ago, a number of his children do not speak to him and he has been held in custody as a protected prisoner.
Judge Smallwood foreshadowed he would jail Leishman which would be followed by a community corrections order with program conditions.
Office Of Corrections staff told the judge that due to Leishman's extensive history of sex offending - in Victoria and interstate - a detailed assessment needed to be undertaken, including investigations into whether he had completed a sex offender program.
Leishman will be back in court on November 17 to be sentenced.
