A FORMER Mayor and MP has admitted he spent $150,000 on 162 different prostitutes in the two years before his arrest over sex with a child two years ago.
Terry Martin, 54, sobbed in the dock as the Supreme Court in Hobart watched his recorded interview this morning.
Mr Martin is a former independent member of Tasmania’s Upper House and mayor of Glenorchy, in Hobart.
Mr Martin’s distress was palpable – both in court and on the DVD recording – when the questioning turned to a stack of child pornography found in a locked drawer in the study of his home.
Mr Martin had oral sex with a Glenorchy 12-year-old and took sexually explicit photos of her at his home in September, 2009, after she was advertised as a prostitute by her mother and the mother’s partner Gary John Devine.
Mr Martin has pleaded not guilty to underage sex charges and one count of producing child pornography, arguing that he believed the girl was 18, as advertised at the time.
During the police interview he was shown photographs taken by him of the girl performing oral sex on him.
He admitted he “usually” did take photos during sex with women.
He cried as he told the two detectives he had since learned a side effect of one of the drugs he had been prescribed for his Parkinson’s Disease was hyper-sexuality.
“Until five years ago I found porn disgusting,” he told them.
He said he discovered it “on the bloody net” during a highly sexual relationship with a “beautiful, intelligent” woman 15 years younger than him, who he had started seeing 10 months after his 2005 diagnosis.
The trial resumes tomorrow.
Read more about MP weeps as he tells of prostitute addiction at The Mercury.
Related posts:
Views: 0