Source : Perth Now news
The victim-survivor in Australia’s first deepfake pornography prosecution has confronted the man behind doctoring her graduation photo, saying the image made her feel sick but she would not let it dictate her world.
William Hamish Yeates, now aged 20, is the first person to be prosecuted under federal laws introduced in 2024 to combat adult deepfake pornography.
He pleaded guilty in April to two counts of creating or altering sexual material without consent between October 2024 and February 2025, and two counts of using a carriage service in a harassing or offensive way.
The material was distributed across multiple accounts on the social media platform, X.
Yeates, a law student from the southern Adelaide suburb of Netherby who was 18 when he committed the offences, appeared in the South Australian District Court on Tuesday for sentencing submissions.
His 19-year-old victim delivered an emotional victim impact statement, telling Yeates that her face, identity and image “were never yours to take”.
“I was not yours to expose, alter, sexualise, stalk, or dehumanise,” she said.
“You made the deliberate choice to strip away my dignity and turn me into something for your sick obsession.”
The victim-survivor had been living a normal high school life when Yeates had taken her face, identity, and trust and turned them into a weapon against her, she said.
“The first time I saw my actual graduation photo was on a pornographic website … every time I now see that photo, I feel sick.
“These images of me were fake, but the impact they had is painfully real.
“You tried to reduce me to an image on the screen, but I am so much more than that.
“If sharing my experience helps even one other victim feel seen, heard, believed, or protected, then something meaningful will come from the pain you caused. I will heal from this.”
Yeates read an apology in court, saying he was in a constant state of self-loathing and shame.
“My actions were repulsive and will continue to plague my mind for as long as I breathe,” he said.
“I will chase redemption and salvation for as long as I live.”
Defence counsel Jane Powell QC asked the court take into account her client’s relative youth, his remorse, his early guilty plea and his diagnoses of autism, compulsive sexual behaviour disorder and persistent adjustment disorder.
She said that when Yeates was 15 to 16, he was introduced to online material about the manosphere and Andrew Tate, “a well-known, vexatious, hateful, misogynistic individual with an enormous worldwide platform, particularly aimed at young men”.
The prosecutor told the court that as the victim had alluded to in her statement, the internet is written in ink, not pencil.
“This gross material will be forever in perpetuity online, and so the risk and the fear of that plaguing her adult life is a very real one.”
The principle of general deterrence ought to weigh very heavily in this case and a sentence which required “some actual custody” was warranted, the prosector said.
Judge Anne Barnett will sentence Yeates on October 22.
