Former Customs Official Says Watching Porn Made Him Rape

WESTERN AUSTRALIA—A former customs official who was accused of committing 31 crimes including the rape of two women is claiming that he developed rape fantasies after watching hundreds of hours of porn as part of his job. The lawyer for 44-year-old Stephen Michael Adams made the comments in court during a sentencing hearing for his client, whose crimes occurred at the tail end of his career as an Australian Federal Police (AFP) officer and a Customs official. “Adams had pleaded guilty to two counts of rape, armed robbery, attempted armed robbery, deprivation of liberty and various fraud offences totaling almost $75,000,” reports the Herald Sun. “The court was told how the 44-year-old carried out sophisticated frauds after becoming obsessed with why people committed crime during his time with the AFP - and then developing a more sinister preoccupation during his four years with Customs. Defense lawyer Richard Lawson said during that time, Adams was tasked to watch hundreds of hours of pornography, and developed an ‘intense interest’ in a ‘seduction rape scenario.’” The lawyer, Richard Lawson, told the court, "He watched pornography for days on end in the job, and that was a major contributing factor to the future sexual offending.” Neither Adams nor his lawyer has a commensurate explanation for why crimes other than the sexual assaults were also committed, but the prosecutor noted that “psychologists had detected ‘systemized predatory behavior’ in Adams,” perhaps, we theorize, as a result of his watching too many hours of Murder, She Wrote. In other news, not one AVN employee who has watched upwards of thousands of hours of pornography as part of their job has been charged with rape or sexual assault. Is there something wrong with Australian porn?