A former video library assistant for Channel Nine is one of nine men arrested as part of an alleged child sex abuse network smashed in a major police operation.
Justin Kenneth Radford, 29, from the New South Wales Central Coast, has been charged with nine sexual offences.
Those allegedly include using a child under 14 to make child abuse material, inciting a child under 16 into a sexual act, possessing child abuse material and bestiality.
Radford was arrested by police in February following a tip off from US authorities.
Authorities claim the arrest has since led to the unravelling of an alleged sex abuse network spanning New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.
It led police to lay charges against two men, 21 and 26, in the town of Kendall last week – the same village on the NSW mid north coast where little boy lost William Tyrrell vanished in September 2014.
Justin Radford – a TV library assistant for the major networks – has been charged with a series of offences under the Australian Federal Police’s Operation Arkstone
The Central Coast man has been charged with offences including inciting a child to perform a sexual act, possessing or controlling child abuse material and bestiality
Police arrested two people in Kendall last week – the same town where William Tyrrell vanished. But the arrests were not linked to the boy’s disappearance
That is the same town where three-year-old William Tyrrell was abducted from his foster grandmother’s home on September 12, 2014.
The two men have not been publicly named.
Police said their arrests did not involve Strike Force Rosann, the investigative team searching for the missing three-year-old who vanished in September 2014.
There is no suggestion any of those accused was involved in the missing boy’s disappearance from his foster grandmother’s home.
Radford was the first of the nine alleged members of the online network to be arrested.
He described himself on LinkedIn as having worked as a tape library assistant for Nine Entertainment Co since 2017.
Daily Mail Australia understands he was employed by NPC Media, a joint venture of Nine, Seven and Southern Cross Australia, which runs telecasts.
He no longer works at the company.
The Federal Police said the alleged child exploitation network was dismantled after Radford’s arrest in February led them to investigate another man in Hervey Bay, Queensland.
In turn, police allege the Queenslander was communicating with western Sydney 30-year-old Grant Harden via encrypted apps.
One of Australia’s largest child sex rings has been busted and nine men arrested after horror footage allegedly showing them raping young boys was shared on the darkweb
A mobile phone seized during raids on the alleged child sex network, above
Harden, from St Clair, has been charged with offences including raping a child under the age of 10 between 2017 and 2020.
Grant Harden, 30, has been charged with sexual offences
He has also been charged with three counts of intentionally sexually touching a child, and charges relating to possessing and distributing child abuse material.
Court documents seen by Daily Mail Australia also allege that Harden ‘did commit an act of bestiality with an animal, to wit, two dogs’.
Police allege Harden had abused a boy known to him as well as three others.
Two days later, officers arrested an air conditioning mechanic, 48, allegedly known to Harden, after finding child abuse images and video on that man’s computer.
All up, seven men have been arrested in New South Wales and one each in Western Australia and Queensland as a result of the operation.
The men are believed to have met on the dark web and communicated via an encrypted app.
At least 14 children have been rescued from harmful situations, police said.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Lesa Gale said police believe they have uncovered one of the biggest domestic child exploitation networks in recent times.
She said police would allege in court that some of the nine accused men had sexually abused children known to them and recorded videos and photographs of the abuse to share with others online.
‘We are continuing to try to identify other children who we suspect were preyed on by individuals in the alleged network,’ she said.
‘It is heartbreaking to think of any child being sexually abused, but it strengthens our resolve to hunt down perpetrators and bring them to justice.’
Both Radford and Harden did not apply for bail at Central Local Court on Tuesday and it was formally refused.
They return to court at a later date.