POVERTY-stricken Filipino parents are increasingly getting their children to perform live sex shows on camera for Australian paedophiles, it has been revealed, as a Victorian man was today one of the first to be jailed for his involvement.

County Court Judge Sandra Davis jailed Victorian Patrick Ronald Goggins, 68, for 11 and a half years and ordered him to serve a minimum of eight years after he admitted to more than 20 child sex offences.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan has vowed to crackdown on the growing problem of Australians sitting at home watching overseas children who they have paid to do webcam sex acts.

Mr Keenan told the Herald Sun that live sex shows involving children were on the rise.

“These are horrific crimes of the most exploitative nature, where children in some of the poorest countries are shockingly abused,” Mr Keenan said.

“Law enforcement continues to see a disturbing trend in Australia with offenders arranging to have children abused in countries by third parties and then paying for live streaming of those sexual assaults into their own homes.

The predators sometimes actually specify what particular perverted acts they want the children to carry out and how old they want the children to be.

The Children’s Legal Bureau, a Cebu-based child support agency, today confirmed to the Herald Sun it had evidence of poor parents bringing their children to homes in the area known locally as cybersex dens.

The den owners pay the parents to allow — and sometimes force — their children to perform live sex acts to order on webcam.

Children’s Legal Bureau lawyer Noemi Truya-Abarientos said thousands of Filipino children were involved in the booming cybersex trade.

“These are operated by parents with their children and their neighbours’ children as performers,” she said.

“In home-based child pornography, the families simply put up internet facilities, buy computer units or laptops, which have got cheap here.

“The client gives the instructions on what the child must do.

“If the foreigner gets bored with one child he orders for others to be brought in front of the webcam — this is when the neighbours are being involved.

“Then the neighbours learn the trade and get their own computer units and internet and so on.

“They are paid via money transfer companies here.”

Goggins sent at least $15,000 in small amounts to the Philippines in the past few years as payment for children there to perform specific live sex acts for him on webcam while he watched from what he thought was the safety of his bedroom in Centre Dandenong Rd, Cheltenham.

What he did not know was the Australian Federal Police was monitoring his emails and gathering material which led to AFP agents raiding his home in April last year.

They discovered sickening evidence of Goggins arranging and paying for many Filipino children to perform personalised sex shows on webcam for him.

His young victims included four girls from the same Filipino family who were aged about five, eight, 14 and 15.

Police discovered evidence of Goggins paying another member of their family $2339 over a 10-month period so the four sisters would do what he instructed them to do.

An adult sister of the four girls offered Goggins webcam access to all four of her sisters at once for just $28 for a whole day.

Goggins admitted to police that the mother of another of his child victims was aware her daughter was taking off her clothes for him and that the mother “probably saw it as a way of getting money”.

He told police he was doing his victims a favour as if he didn’t send them money they would be “out on the scrap heap, living on the rubbish”.

Police found several thousand child porn images and videos involving children as young as three when they searched his home.

Goggins was charged with a range of paedophile offences, including multiple counts of persistent sexual abuse of a child outside Australia, eight counts of engaging in sexual activity with a child outside Australia and soliciting and producing child pornography.

Most of Goggins’ child victims were from slum areas near Cebu, in the south of the Philippines

Mr Keenan today warned Australian predators perpetrating online crimes against children they would be hunted down and caught.

“Today’s successful prosecution in Melbourne of Goggins over his involvement in the sexual abuse of children through online ‘pay-per-view’ out of the Philippines is a breakthrough in our international law enforcement agenda to detect and disrupt criminal syndicates,” the Justice Minister told the Herald Sun.

“Each pay-per-view image is a heinous crime scene. Every image captures an actual situation where a child is being abused.

“Online predators that instruct the abuse and exploitation of children using this type of activity can and will be detected by law enforcement.

“I congratulate the AFP, which worked extensively with Philippines law enforcement authorities to detect and disrupt the ‘pay-per-view’ operation.

“No area of the internet is immune from law enforcement activity and no form abuse or sexual exploitation of a child will be tolerated.”

Mr Keenan said concerns about suspicious and/or inappropriate behaviour online should be reported through the AFP website, directly to local police or through the Virtual Global Taskforce Report Abuse page at www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com

keith.moor@news.com.au