Five more suspects charged as part of Australia's widely-covered Operation Auxin Internet child porn sweep have pleaded guilty to various charges.
One, primary school teacher Alan John Vella, reported pleaded guilty to two charges of selling or supplying child porn and one charge of possessing child porn, all of which dated back to 2002. He faces a November 19 sentencing in Perth magistrates court.
John Raymond Peter Francis, Christopher James Burgess, Clint Houghton-Smith, and Colin James Burns pleaded guilty to possessing or copying child porn, but Houghton-Smith did not plea to additional charges of possessing or copying an obscene article.
They are also due for November sentencing.
In Sydney, another Operation Auxin defendant, Dr. Richard Wingate, failed to appear in court to answer to charges of keeping child porn on his computer – and the physician himself had a doctor's excuse.
Wingate's attorney reportedly gave the court a certificate from the doctor's psychiatrist explaining his absence from the first court date, and Wingate was rescheduled to appear November 18.
Over 200 defendants facing over 2,000 charges were arrested in the September sweep.
