A former Queensland ambulance officer has been sentenced to 13 years in
jail for "depraved" sexual abuse of 22 young girls across several
states over a 10-year period.
The victims of 49-year-old Jason David Brooker were in Queensland, New
South Wales and Victoria, with the youngest being 11 years old.
Brooker, who was between 38 and 47 years of age at the time of
offending, contacted young girls via social media sites Kik, Tagged and
Facebook using the name 'Jaz', 'David Bourne' or 'David Brook'.
In the District Court in Toowoomba on Tuesday, Brooker pleaded guilty to
57 charges, including maintaining a relationship with a child under 16, carnal
knowledge, indecent treatment and making and possessing child exploitation
material.
The offending was carried out from Brooker's home in Warwick on
Queensland's Southern Downs between 2005 and 2015, when one victim raised the
alarm and police raided his property.
The court heard Brooker often paid for mobile phone credit for the young
girls or offered to "get them into modelling" in exchange for naked
photographs, and threatened to release the photos on the internet if the girls
did not comply with requests for more explicit material.
Offender videoed sex
with 14yo girl
Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Kelso told the court the most serious
offending was involving a 14-year-old girl, who he lured via social media
pretending to be a 16-year-old boy.
After several webcam chats where Brooker asked the girl to take off her
clothes, the pair met multiple times including at a park and a hotel in the
Brisbane suburb of Brookside.
Ms Kelso told the court the girl had not told her parents where she was
going.
"[Brooker] filmed some of those interactions," Ms Kelso said.
"In that footage he can be seen undressing the complainant."
The pair then had sexual intercourse, which was also recorded on video.
'I was made to feel
like a disgusting human being'
During police raids of Brooker's Warwick home in 2015, officers found a
disc containing 83 photos of the girl in states of undress.
The court was read a victim impact statement from that girl, who is now
an adult.
"[I] feel sick because of the visual memories," the statement
read.
"I feared for my life and my family's too — I was made to feel like
a disgusting human being."
Ms Kelso said Brooker would request naked pictures and send pictures of
his own genitalia to other girls.
The victims often found out the person they were talking to was not a
16-year-old boy when Brooker turned on his own webcam.
Ms Kelso said Brooker would often tell his victims he loved them. If they
refused his advances, he would threaten the victims with knowing where they
lived.
"If the complainants became reluctant or started to ignore the
defendant, he became angry," she said.
"Where he had provided them money, he would tell them he felt he'd
been ripped off."
Ms Kelso said the most disturbing thing about Brooker's conduct was the
"meticulous" nature of the thousands of photos and videos in his
child exploitation collection, found during the police raids.
Some of the exploitation material was of children as young as three
years old.
"Not only was is stored electronically, it was also stored on CDs
identified with the girls name, age and locations," Ms Kelso said.
The raids also uncovered stolen prescription drugs and uniforms from the
Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS).
Brooker left the QAS during the 10 years of offending and began to work
for a private firm as a paramedic.
Brooker's defence lawyer David Jones told the court his client had not
shared any of the child exploitation material he created.
He said Brooker's conduct was largely inexplicable, but he had written a
letter of apology and was on the road to rehabilitation.
In sentencing, Judge Deborah Richards told the court one incident
involved threatening a young child with harm.
"You said: 'If you don't send me nudes I'll track down your address
and hurt your family' — she was 11 years old," the judge said.
Judge Richards said Brooker offended with the hope of having each of the
girls have sex with him.
"You did make admissions ... but downplayed the criminality of your
actions on many occasions," she said.
"This was persistent, depraved behaviour over a long period of
time."
Judge Deborah Richards chose not to label Brooker a serious violent
offender.
He will be eligible to apply for parole in January 2021, six years after
he was taken into custody.
