After entering a plea of guilty to downloading, soliciting, and transmitting child abuse material, the former director of one of Western Australia’s largest hospitals now faces a jail sentence.
The former CEO of the Joondalup Health Campus, Kempton Cowan, 56, appeared in the Magistrates Court today and entered a plea of guilty to a total of 11 counts.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) originally detained him in March of last year after searching his residence in the Mosman Park neighborhood of western Perth and discovering films of girls being sexually assaulted.
Additionally, a record of an internet request for content including child abuse was found.
An Interpol tip concerning a teenage girl in the UK who claimed to have been in internet contact with a man in Australia led to the search of Cowan’s house.
Kempton Cowan strolls by the court.
The utilised messaging accounts were then connected to Cowan.
Between 2002 until 2020, Cowan served as the Joondalup Health Campus’s CEO.
He was first charged with four offenses, but in November, nine more accusations were added after a forensic investigation of his personal devices.
He pleaded guilty to 11 crimes today, including soliciting and having child abuse material and transmitting it.
There were two charges dropped.
A head-and-shoulders view of Kempton Cowan standing outside the court, gazing to his right while donning a face mask, a coat and tie, and eyeglasses.
The maximum sentence for each offense to which Cowan pleaded guilty is 15 years in prison.
His bail was extended until his sentencing hearing in July before the District Court.
