Citation: R v Page [2025] NSWDC 210
Court: District Court of New South Wales
Date: 28 March 2025
Judge: Wass SC DCJ
Background
The offender, a man in his early sixties, ran an Airbnb from a subdivided portion of his Newport home with his wife. Motivated by curiosity after hearing guests through a shared wall, he purchased hidden Wi-Fi cameras and concealed them throughout the Airbnb unit, including in the bathroom, to record guests without their knowledge. He would later review the footage, discard material he considered uninteresting, and retain recordings "of interest" on his phone.
Between March 2021 and January 2023, the offender recorded intimate images of multiple adult guests without their consent. He was ultimately discovered when guests found a camera concealed in a bathroom bin and contacted police. A subsequent search warrant uncovered the full extent of his offending.
Among the retained footage were two files showing a 13-year-old girl naked in the bathroom. That girl had accompanied her mother to the Airbnb without the offender's prior knowledge. The material was classified as Category 2 child abuse material. The offender pleaded guilty to 15 counts of intentionally recording intimate images without consent and one count of producing child abuse material.
Legal Issues
- Whether the offender's conduct after filming the 13-year-old girl (reviewing, sorting, and retaining the footage) was relevant to the production charge, or whether production was complete at the moment of filming.
- Whether later possession of child abuse material (not separately charged) could be used to inform the nature and gravity of the production offence.
- What aggregate sentence was appropriate across the 16 offences, having regard to maximum penalties, objective seriousness, the offender's personal circumstances, and prospects of rehabilitation.
- Whether the sentence should be served in custody or by way of an Intensive Correction Order.
Decision
On the production charge and the role of post-filming conduct
The central legal dispute concerned what acts constitute "producing" child abuse material under s 91H(2) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). The Crown argued that the offender's deliberate steps after filming (reviewing, deleting non-intimate footage, and retaining the files showing the child) were part of the production process. The defence submitted that production was complete at the moment the footage was captured, and that all later conduct amounted to possession, which had not been charged.
His Honour accepted that the act of filming completed the production offence. The court was cautious about using uncharged acts of possession to increase the severity of the sentence, consistent with the principle in The Queen v De Simoni (1981), which prohibits sentencing a person on the basis of a more serious offence for which they have not been convicted. While the court acknowledged the Crown's submissions, it treated the production offence as one of reckless creation rather than deliberate targeting of the child, which moderated but did not eliminate its seriousness.
On the objective seriousness of the offending overall
The court characterised the intimate image offences as a gross breach of trust towards Airbnb guests who had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Indicative terms ranged from three months for individual adult victims to eight months for later victims where the offending continued despite prior police contact. The child abuse material offence was treated as more serious, carrying a ten-year maximum, though the court accepted that the child's presence was unknown to the offender and that the posing was not sexual in nature.
On sentence and disposition
The court imposed an aggregate sentence of two years and ten months. His Honour found the offender posed almost no risk to the community, was engaged in ongoing treatment and stable employment, and that rehabilitation was best achieved in the community. The sentence was ordered to be served by way of an Intensive Correction Order.
Orders Made
- Aggregate term of imprisonment of two years and ten months.
- The term to be served in the community by way of an Intensive Correction Order, on the same conditions as a Community Correction Order.
- Two days of pre-sentence custody (time in Manly police cells) taken into account in the sentence.
Key Takeaways
- The District Court held that the act of filming completes a production offence under s 91H of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW); subsequent conduct such as reviewing and retaining footage is more properly characterised as possession and should not be used to aggravate the production charge where possession has not been separately charged.
- Prosecutors bear a responsibility not to lead a sentencing judge into error by pressing for the court to take into account uncharged offences in a manner inconsistent with the De Simoni principle.
- Reckless creation of child abuse material (where the offender did not know a child was present) can still ground a conviction under s 91H, though the reckless rather than deliberate nature of the conduct is a relevant mitigating factor in sentencing.
- A gross breach of the trust placed in a host by Airbnb guests, combined with persistent offending across multiple victims over two years, weighed heavily in the objective seriousness assessment for the intimate image offences.
- An Intensive Correction Order remains available even for an aggregate sentence of nearly three years, where the offender demonstrates genuine rehabilitation, low recidivism risk, and where community-based treatment is assessed as better serving the purposes of sentencing.
Legislation and Cases Referenced
Legislation
- Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), ss 91H(2), 91P(1)
- Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW), s 66
Cases
- The Queen v De Simoni (1981) HCA 31
- Doyle v R [2022] NSWCCA 81
- KW v R [2013] NSWCCA 31
- Matthews v R [2018] NSWCCA 186
- R v Edwards (1996) A Crim R 510
- R v Gerard [2004] NSWCCA 170
- R v HL [2019] NSWDC 41
- R v RZ [2023] NSWDC 181