A convicted terror supporter who secretly deleted his violent pornographic browser history from an Australian Federal Police-monitored phone and laptop has been sentenced to more than a year behind bars.
Nurse and paramedic Adam Brookman supported Chechen fighters on the frontline against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria and was jailed for his involvement in a foreign incursion in 2014.
Adam Brookman pleaded guilty to charges relating to his accessing of unauthorised materials.
Police were left scrambling to monitor his activities when he was released immediately after being sentenced to six years and eight months prison – all of it time served.
He agreed to strict control order conditions including a ban on social media access without written approval from the AFP and to not access unauthorised material showing knives, guns, executions or explosions.
It took less than three weeks for Brookman to breach the order and on Friday he was jailed for 18 months.
With another 455 days of time served up his sleeve, Brookman could walk free immediately if granted parole.
For three months in 2021 police monitored his online activities, watching as he visited pornographic websites and then deleted details of the clips and videos from his browser history.
One video, a Justice League themed animated clip, involved physical and sexual violence and concluded with the main character, Supergirl, being raped and executed.
He also played and watched first-person shooter video games, described in a pre-sentence hearing by a prosecutor on Friday as “ultra-violent”.
The 46-year-old pleaded guilty to four charges of breaching the control order. Three of the charges related to his accessing of unauthorised materials while the fourth was laid when he put a password on the devices without permission.
His barrister, Rahmin de Kretser, said the shooter games were probably the most serious of the contraventions, but he didn’t see any of them as “that serious”.
Brookman had a passion for medical issues and had worked hard in life, but lost his career after travelling overseas and later being jailed, he said.
“He’s sitting at home, he’s bored. There is a degree of boredom, a degree of defeat in terms of what his life has become,” he said.
Judge Simon Moglia said he was most concerned about Brookman’s deception in deleting his browser history, despite knowing his activity was being supervised by police.
He said it wasn’t irrational for controls or monitoring of Brookman’s use of first-person shooter games, but made clear he didn’t think they led to violence that could become terrorism.
“There is a risk in terms of the obsessiveness or compulsion to keep playing or engaging in violence – animated as it is – that may well for somebody, create concerns,” he said.
The judge also took issue with the charge relating to the password because Brookman had told officers about it, and the password had not stopped them monitoring his devices.
Moglia warned if there was no reasonable reason for a breach to be prosecuted, the control orders could become an instrument of oppression.
He worried that would “create a class of people who are aggravated and angry”.
AAP
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