Adelaide businessman who admitted to child exploitation asks to be locked up immediately

An Adelaide businessman who pleaded guilty to child exploitation charges has told a court he wants to be locked up immediately, but denied he was a paedophile.

Philip Andrews was the boss of Gasworks Unley when he was charged with knowingly being in the possession of child exploitation material and disseminating child exploitation material in March.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: SA businessman pleads guilty to child exploitation charges.

His lawyer told the District Court during sentencing submissions on Thursday, he had a porn addition that morphed into images of children being sexually abused.

Andrews searched the internet for pre-teen pictures, pre-teen porn videos, gay teen porn and teen girls nude.

But the father of three denies being a predator and the court heard he told a psychologist: ”I had a look at some stuff, but it doesn’t mean I’m a paedophile.”

Judge Anthony Allen did not accept this explanation and told the court: “The only plausible explanation … is that he has a sexual attraction to children.

“To try and assert otherwise would be an affront to common sense,” Allen said.

He said the majority of the material Andrews accessed “is depraved to the extreme” and labelled his offending “extraordinarily serious”.

Defence lawyer John Lyons told the court Andrews knew he was going to jail and asked the judge to immediately revoke his bail to not deny the inevitable.

He also asked the judge for leniency during sentencing.

“He has wanted to rid himself of these demons and to become a positive citizen,” Lyons told the court.

Andrews spent his first night behind bars following the hearing.

He faces a maximum penalty of 12 years in jail and will learn his fate later this month.

- With Deanna Williams.