UNSW student Ali Alghamdi allegedly found with 25,000 files of child abuse material
Officers arrested Ali Alghamdi, a 35-year-old Saudi Arabian national, at a Randwick university campus about 3pm on Monday.
Police allegedly located over 25,000 videos and images of child abuse material, including 42 marked as 'favourites' following a search of his phone.
Alghamdi was charged with use carriage etc to access child abuse material.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported Alghamdi stored the material on encrypted messaging apps, Waverley Local Court heard on Tuesday.
One of his three email accounts allegedly contained a shocking 650 gigabytes worth of material.
'When initially questioned why he had favourited 42 files he said he did not know they were in his possession and subsequently expanded on that (saying) he had obtained the material for the purpose of reporting child abuse material to authorities,' Commonwealth prosecutor Melanie Tam told the court.
The alleged child abuse material was 'significantly depraved … including children between two and four years old and infants', Tam said.
His arrest followed an investigation into the online distribution, supply and access of child abuse material by the State Crime Command's Sex Crimes Squad Child Internet Exploitation Unit.
'They searched devices which contained film which could only be said to be the most perturbing child sexual abuse,' Magistrate Michael Barko said.
'A lay person would be satisfied it's the type of offending that would have the offender serve a long term of imprisonment. He tried to tell police he had this material because he had tried to report the material to police and happened to have the material on his phone two years after the event.'
Alghamdi is a part-time Uber driver and is on a student visa, completing his PhD in optometry at UNSW.
His wife and children - aged four and eight - joined him in Sydney in June, the court heard.
Alghamdi was unsuccessful in his bail application and is expected to front the court in September.
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