Father who reported stepdaughter for sexting is placed on sex offenders register himself.

A Victorian man has been placed on the sex-offenders registry for eight years after reporting his stepdaughter’s sexts to police.

According to The Herald Sun, trouble began when Ashan Ortell discovered that his teenage stepdaughter had taken nude images of herself and sent them to her boyfriend.

Confiscating the phone and images, Ortell reported the matter to the girl’s high school and local police. But when police searched his house shortly after and discovered two USB’s and a laptop containing the images, he was arrested and charged with possessing child pornography.

Despite being satisfied that Ortell had not kept the images for sexual motivation, he was still added to the sex offender register, which will require him to report to police annually, disclose computer usernames and social media accounts, and notify authorities if he plans to go away for longer than one weekend.

“The law says that people may not keep images of a sexual nature of children. Usually, such images are kept for sexual motivation,” the sentencing judge told Ortell.

The texts between the girl and her boyfriend were considered consensual. Source: iStock. 

“That is not the case in your situation. You kept the images, I am satisfied, because you were very concerned about what had been going on and foolishly decided that this was the way to deal with it.

"Nevertheless, the message has to get out to everybody that sexual images of children must not be kept on computers or any other form of equipment.”

Speaking to the media after being sentenced, Ortell said he didn't realise holding onto the images until a response had been provided was still considered child pornography.

“I made a copy for the school and the police. The police then interviewed me and my step daughter separately but said it appeared to be consensual," he said.

“No one told me that this is child pornography so delete it," he continued, adding, "My solicitor made the point ‘why would he go to the police if he had anything to hide?

“What’s hard for me is this register thing,” Ortell said finally. “I didn’t create this stuff, I didn’t distribute it. By law, it’s mandatory that they put you on this register."