A former teacher with a graphic internet history has denied he was intentionally searching for child abuse online.
William Roberto Gulson told a court on Wednesday he had no memory of searching for ‘gay child porn’ on his phone but suggested the search may have been automatically filled.
‘You think it’s possible that a search engine would have suggested an illegal term as an autocomplete term?’ prosecutor Jessica Chan asked Gulson.
‘I may have typed that, I don’t remember this event occurring,’ Gulson said.
‘I can tell you I never wanted to search for that.’
When asked whether his internet searches, including ‘young boy raped movie scene’ and ‘movies about priests molesting boys’, indicated a sexual interest in children, Gulson denied it.
‘Look at anyone’s phone,’ he said.
‘I’m sure lots of people type in eyebrow-raising searches.’
William Roberto Gulson denied he was intentionally searching for child abuse online
Gulson faced a contested hearing in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court this week after pleading not guilty to procuring a child under 16 for sex.
The charge stems from a sexual conversation on a dating app for adults in which he connected with a 15-year-old girl, posing as a boy.
The court was told Gulson persisted with the explicit chat for more than 40 minutes after being told the other person was school-aged.
The fake profile told Gulson they were in year 9 before sending Gulson a photo of an erect penis.
A later message stated their age was 15.
‘Wow, so young, I feel conflicted,’ Gulson responded.
But he testified that he never believed the user was a child.
The online profile on Grindr – an adults-only LGBTQI hook-up – stated they were in their 20s.
The former drama teacher (left) has pleaded not guilty to procuring a child under 16 for sex
‘I believed I was dealing with an adult male that was using the site,’ Gulson told the court on Wednesday.
Gulson taught at Sydney’s elite Knox Grammar School and conducted private tutoring before he was charged over the messaging in September 2024.
The 15-year-old and another teenager were running a fake profile on Grinder with the aim of catching pedophiles, the court was told.
Under cross-examination, Gulson said he believed the exchange was a bizarre attempt by a ‘wacko adult’ to pretend they were a child.
That followed the prosecutor suggesting he had never checked whether the person was ‘pretending to be 15’.
‘Surely if there was even a risk you were speaking to a 15-year-old you should end the conversation,’ Ms Chan said.
Photos from the fake profile saved on Gulson’s camera roll were presented by Ms Chan as evidence of his interest in having sex with a child.
But Gulson said he had a procedure where he would save images of people on Grindr he wished to meet so he could check their identity with a reverse image search.
Gulson taught at Knox Grammar, on Sydney’s upper north shore. The elite school charges annual fees of up to $43,170 per student
Ms Chan told the court she could find no reference to any results referring to a reverse image search in the 484,000 pages of data extracted from his phone.
Gulson testified on Wednesday after his lawyer failed to get the single charge of procuring a child under 16 for unlawful sexual activity dismissed.
Gulson’s lawyer Paul Glissan argued there was no case to answer because the children talking to the former teacher had no intention of meeting him.
‘The child who was doing the chatting was actually enticing the defendant,’ Mr Glissan said.
Ms Chan said whether or not the children intended to meet Gulson was irrelevant and the charge only related to the conduct of the 28-year-old.
‘A police officer posing as a child to catch paedophiles has no intention of meeting with them,’ she said.
