Former reality TV farmer Matt Goyder given two-year jail term over child exploitation material – ABC News

A former star of the popular reality show "Farmer Wants a Wife" has been jailed for possessing and distributing images and videos of child sexual abuse, described by a Perth judge as "vile" and "of the upmost depravity".

Matthew Eric Goyder, who appeared in the 2016 series of the show, was arrested last year after chatting onlineto someone he thought was a 37-year-old woman but who was actually an undercover police officer.

Goyder, who employedthe user name PilbaraBoy90, then sent the officer two videos showing girls aged between fourand eightyears being sexually abused.

Police searched the apartment where Goyder was staying and seized a laptop computer that was found to contain more than 4,000 images and videos of children someas young as 6 months being abused.

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District Court Judge Karen Shepherd said the material was "of the upmost depravity and depicted the most serious sexual abuse of children".

"[Put] simply it is vile ... it depicts high levels of perversion and debauchery and it is degrading," Judge Shepherd said.

The court heard Goyder suffered various mental health issues, including anxiety and depression, and Judge Shepherd accepted that had played a role in his offending.

However, she said those issues were intertwined with Goyder's drug use and he himself had claimed he only offended because he was using methylamphetamine, which made him "hypersexual".

The court was told Goyder had used the drug over many years, and had decided in 2015 to go on the TV reality program to fill a void in his life after a stint in drug rehabilitation in Thailand.

In a letter Goyder provided to the court, he said hewas genuinely seeking love and a relationship, and he did fall for someone but it did not end up how he would have liked.

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Hesaid the program had "really messed" with hismindand ended up shattering his self-confidence,leading to his life "spiraling out of control."

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The court heard Goyder had also suffered a hypoxic brain injury in 2019, which his lawyers submittedhad affected his thinking and made him "disinhibited".

Judge Shepherd accepted that Goyder was remorseful and that he had pleaded guilty at an early stage.

She also noted Goyder had made extensive efforts to rehabilitate himself, including spending 13 months at a drug rehabilitation facility.

The judge also took into account that Goyder, by putting himself in the spotlight, had suffered a degree of public humiliation because of the media attention given to the case.

However, she said the offences were so serious that only a jail term of two years was appropriate.

Judge Shepherd said the crimes were not so-called "victimless" ones, because real children were abused, violated and degraded in the production of the material.

Goyder will have to serve half the term before being eligible for parole, meaning his earliest possible release date will bein May 2022.

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Former reality TV farmer Matt Goyder given two-year jail term over child exploitation material - ABC News