Charged … Gregory Minehan outside Central Local Court.
Photo: Peter Morris
A FORMER police officer who ran police community youth clubs in at least three NSW country towns has been charged with 29 child pornography offences.
Gregory Minehan, 39, was arrested as part of the national crackdown on a pedophile network by Strike Force Pyrmont in December.
According to a police document tendered in court, he sent numerous text messages and emails, and had telephone conversations with associates in which he talked about sex with boys, including discussing what they would pay the child.
In one conversation he also allegedly asked a 14-year-old about his sexual experiences, leading to a charge he was "grooming" the boy for sexual activities.
In August last year he allegedly sent a text message to a 17-year-old associate telling him he had signed the cast on a boy's broken leg with the word "Idolman" and the "Boylover" logo. While he had done so he had been able to see inside the boy's shorts, seeing his briefs, he informed his associate. In another text message three weeks later he told another associate he was attending a wedding and planned to offer oral sex to a 14-year-old boy he had met.
Minehan has worked as a police officer in Armidale, where he was attached to the PCYC. He later left to run the PCYCs at Muswellbrook and Kempsie. He is understood to have left the police about three years ago, and was last working as an asset protection officer for Coles Myer for whom he travelled around the state.
Police allege Minehan, who was under physical and technical surveillance by police, is connected to a network of pedophiles producing and sharing illicit material.
The network, which tried to identify and gain access to potential victims, also shared information on how to avoid detection by police.
Last September he allegedly met a person at a shopping centre in Rhodes. Their conversation was intercepted by police and Minehan allegedly showed the person sexually explicit material involving children on his laptop before copying material from his flash drive onto another flash drive.
Minehan is facing 18 charges of transmitting or disseminating child pornography, nine charges of possessing it, one charge of producing it and one charge of using a carriage service to groom a person under 16 for sexual activity.
He is due back in court in April.