An MP’s paedophile son who was caught with a vile stash of child porn could walk free from prison in just two months.
Daniel James Knuth, the son of Katter’s Australian Party MP Shane Knuth, was on Thursday jailed for five-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to two counts of possessing child exploitation material.
Because of time he has already served behind bars, he will be eligible for parole in April, the Townsville Bulletin reported.
Knuth, 25, was found with 593 child exploitation images and four videos on his phone in September 2021. Among them were 74 files considered to be among the worst kind of child porn.
He had also been communicating with girls as young as 12 on Snapchat and Facebook under a false name.
Police seized Knuth’s phone but caught him with more child porn just six weeks later.
Knuth, from Charters Towers, Queensland, was already serving a suspended sentence after his conviction in 2019 for 35 child sexual abuse offences.
Townsville District Court was told how Knuth was granted “incredible leniency” not to have been jailed on that occasion, and that he was spared prison because he suffers from dwarfism.
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Defence barrister Jess Horn said Knuth was regularly called a “paedophile” on the street and was “ostracised” from his community.
Shane Knuth, MP for Hill, cried as his son was sentenced.
“From the beginning, Daniel’s acknowledged he’s done the wrong thing, and as parents, we love him, but we don’t condone what he’s done,” Mr Knuth said outside court.
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