Qld child porn maker wins prison appeal

A church-goer who pleaded guilty to taking pornographic photographs of a young relative as she slept has successfully appealed his prison sentence.

The man was sentenced to four months behind bars for numerous charges, including making child exploitation material, in June this year.

It came more than a decade after the man, then aged 22, first snuck into his young sister-in-law's room at night to take pictures of her sleeping.

The 12-year-old initially thought the flash of the camera was lightning from a storm, but noticed she often had to tug down her pyjamas after waking to the light.

The night-time visits continued to the point when the girl, then aged about 15, would be woken by the man lifting up the bra she'd started wearing to bed.

When she told her parents about it they thought her complaint might've been a "misunderstanding".

But years later, a separate brother-in-law stumbled upon a folder on the man's computer filled with hundreds of pictures of the teenager.

He was shocked by the discovery and decided to burn a CD of the pictures as evidence which was ultimately delivered to the church-going family's bishop.

The CD was later destroyed by the man's father.

About four years later, his victim decided to pursue child exploitation charges and the man was eventually sentenced to one year's imprisonment, suspended after four months.

In a self-represented challenge in Queensland's Court of Appeal, he successfully argued this had been "manifestly excessive".

Justice Peter Lyons noted he had no other criminal history, had made substantial efforts to rehabilitate himself and had been punished by his church, reasons published on Friday revealed.

The court ordered the initial sentence be entirely suspended from now on.