Jack Martens handed long jail sentence after discovery of 1000 child abuse files on his phone

CONTENT WARNING: This article refers to child abuse material.

A 25-year-old man has been jailed after police discovered more than 1000 images and videos of child abuse material (CAM), alongside numerous inappropriate conversations with minors via social media platforms.

At Wagga Wagga District Court last Wednesday (27 November), Jack Anthony Martens was sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment for 28 offences after pleading guilty to committing child abuse-related crimes against 24 children.

Martens’ crimes came to light after the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation received a report from the United States National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in May 2021 about an online user who was uploading CAM to an online cloud storage platform.

Court documents revealed that on 7 September, 2021, AFP Child Protection Operations investigators attended a home in Grenfell to arrest Martens. When he could not be found at the premises, the officers went to his workplace and seized his Samsung mobile phone at about 8:10 am.

A short time later, Martens accompanied the AFP officers and gave an interview where he admitted to being the sole user of the Samsung phone and the apps, including Kik, Discord, Skype and Snapchat.

He denied ever actively seeking or sharing CAM but acknowledged receiving it unsolicited. He also claimed to have stopped any communication when he received it and that some of the material may have remained on his phone unnoticed.

At 11:16 am the same day, he was arrested and taken to Young Police Station where he was formally charged.

Documents tendered to the court said the forensic examination of the device revealed Martens’ exploitation, including manipulation and grooming, coercion of minors and distribution of exploited content.

He used aliases such as Beastmaster765, Bulletclub2018, dirtydaddy117 and bigjack1723 across different social media platforms to engage children in explicit conversation and solicited explicit images and videos.

Evidence showed Martens coercing a child to cut her skin with a pocket knife and record while doing it. When the child said, “It’s dull, but still hurts a bit haha”, Martens said, “Shame not sharp enough to bleed”.

There is evidence of numerous conversations in which Martens asked children to send photos of themselves.

Evidence shows Martens coercing a 14-year-old to go to an adult store. But when she refused and said, “But I can’t go. I’m 14”, Martens said, “That doesn’t matter”, to which the child responded, “It does. I need to be 18”.

Another piece of evidence shows Marten asking another child what she was wearing and when she responded by saying she was “home alone”, he asked her to “strip naked” and call him “daddy from now on”.

Other conversations show the accused asking children if they had heard of bestiality and had sent videos depicting it.

Evidence also showed Martens had coerced a child to go to the men’s bathroom at a truck stop to engage in sexual activity with another man.

Some of the conversations Martens (M) had with other users include:

M – “You had something about your niece”

User Little Ones (LO) – “Yes got an age limit”

M – “Not that I know of”

LO – “What! So you’d f*** a 5-year-old?

M- “You, her aunt or uncle”

LO – “Aunt”

M – “Yeah I probably would”

LO- “She’s 5”

M – “That’s okay”

LO- “Tell me what you wanna do to her”

M- “Well show me her face”

M- “Then I’ll pin her down and rape her…”

LO- “Mmmmmm yes, have you ever done that before?”

M- “Yes”

LO- “How old?”

M- “To a 10 yo”

Evidence showed the convicted child abuser engaged in conversation with another user named Alex F about ”using” a little girl for sexual exploitation and exchanging files.

The user asked Martens about the ages of the girls and whether he had any images or videos.

Martens said they were nine and 12, to which the user responded “Oh damn same”.

Martens also asked the user whether they knew of “any little girls around?”.

Martens pleaded guilty to 10 counts of using a carriage service to transmit indecent communication to persons under 16, seven counts of using a carriage service to transmit child abuse material, five counts of using a carriage service to cause child abuse material to be transmitted to himself, and two counts of using a carriage service to solicit child abuse material.

The serial child abuser also pleaded guilty to single counts of possessing child abuse material accessed or obtained using a carriage service, using a carriage service to groom another person to make it easier to procure persons under 16, using a carriage service for sexual activity, and using a carriage service to procure a person under 16.

If this story has raised any concerns for you, 1800RESPECT, the national 24-hour sexual assault, family and domestic violence counselling line, can be contacted on 1800 737 732 or by visiting www.1800respect.org.au. In an emergency, call triple zero.