A paedophile former Melbourne primary school principal has been jailed for just three months for possessing child abuse material, leaving parents furious.
Richard John Barren, from Langwarrin Park Primary School, was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment in the County Court of Victoria on Wednesday, but Judge Susan Wakeling ordered he be released on a recognisance order after serving the minimum non-parole period of three months.
Barren, 50, was arrested on January 26 last year after Border Force officers found child abuse material on his phone when he flew back from a holiday in the US, and a second phone also containing child abuse material was found at his home, the Herald Sun reported.
The material included violent videos of girls as young as 10 that are too graphic to describe, 7News reported.
Police also uncovered messages where he told users of homosexual hook-up app Grinder he had preferences for children as young as eight, and when another users asked how young he responded “no limit”. “The younger the better”, he told another user.
Barren also talked about “perving on pool change rooms” and children he saw at the Rye Carnival, and his lawyers described his offending as abhorrent and vile.
In sentencing Judge Wakeling referred to a psychologist’s report saying Barren would have a difficult time in prison because of his emotional vulnerability, but said she had to take community protection into account and denounce his conduct.
“The offending is serious regardless of the number of images because possession of it contributes to the exploitation of children and involves the victimisation of real children,” she said.
But parents said outside the sentence was too light, with one saying “there’s kids traumatised from them even knowing that he was watching them in the bathrooms, in the change room”.
“Appalling really. I don’t feel the sentencing he received was good enough,” one mum said.
“It’s a total abuse of power by a principal in a primary school over a prolonged period as well,” said another.
“I just think he was so smug when he knew he was getting out in three months. This goes to show he was not remorseful”.
Header image: Left, right, Richard Barren (supplied).
The post Paedophile principal given just three months’ jail for child abuse material first appeared on The Noticer.
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