A Christian charity marketing executive behind a taboo "daddy dom" novel shut down publication after backlash from those who viewed it as pedophilic, a court has been told.
Lauren Ashley Mastrosa, 34, is fighting child abuse material charges brought over the book Daddy's Little Toy which she wrote under the pen name Tori Woods.
The Sydney woman issued a pre-release of the novel to 21 advance readers in March before a complaint about its content was made to NSW Police.
The book is about an 18-year-old woman named Lucy who identifies as a "little".
The fictional toy store employee in the book role-plays as a toddler with an older man, Blacktown Local Court was told on Thursday.
"She's pretending to be three, it’s a fantasy," said the author's barrister Margaret Cunneen SC.
"The law doesn't prohibit people writing about fictitious (adult) people playing these roles."
Mastrosa is fighting allegations that she possessed, disseminated or produced child abuse material.
The Quakers Hill woman was horrified to hear her erotic novel was regarded as pedophilia and took every effort to prevent publication after the backlash, Ms Cunneen submitted.
The barrister questioned police suggestions that the novel contained child abuse material at all.
“There is no depiction of a real child engaging in sexual activity,” she told magistrate Bree Chisholm.
Three times during the hearing Ms Cunneen brought up the example of a man on a Mardi Gras float wearing a dummy and a nappy as portraying this type of role-playing that was not child abuse material.
Senior Constable Liam Matson was tasked with reading the entire novel.
He testified it contained parts depicting offensive content with someone implied to be a child.
“Do you know anything about the area of sexual fantasy which is called daddy dom little girl?” she asked
“I have done some light reading,” he replied.
Sen Const Matson disagreed Lucy was always aged 18 throughout the novel, pointing to a section early in the book written from the perspective of a man named Arthur.
Arthur wanted a woman as sweet and as nice as Lucy was when she was a three-year-old toddler, he said.
“It sounds like he wants a three-year-old to me,” the officer said.
"There is sexual stuff in the book that starts when she is three.”
Mastrosa sat beside her husband shaking her head in court as Sen Const Matson argued the book portrayed Lucy at different ages.
The officer also said a part where the fictional toy store worker was being spanked was an example of assault.
He conceded any references to sexual intercourse or touching only took place in sections of Daddy's Little Toy where the main character was 18.
He said police received no formal training in classifying child abuse material in line with commonwealth legislation.
Ms Cunneen argued this meant officers could have their own interpretations of what child abuse material was and Sen Const Matson had taken the novel out of context.
After arresting Mastrosa, searching her home, and interviewing her at Riverstone police station, it would be hard for officers to walk back their allegations and concede there was a reasonable doubt, the barrister said.
But the prosecutor said the material depicted a child in sexual situations.
Merely including references elsewhere that Lucy was 18 did not change that, he argued.
"In those particular chapters what Your Honour reads ... is a person that is implied to be a child," he told the magistrate.
If a person ripped out those portions of the book and read them alone, they would be reading child abuse material, he said.
In a recorded interview to police played to the court, Mastrosa rejected claims her book contained any child abuse material.
“Hell no, that's not it," she told officers.
“This is not something that I want out there if it is incriminating unintentionally," she told police.
Ms Chisholm will deliver judgment on February 10.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
