A Canberra teacher facing sentencing for child pornography offences has acknowledged his victims will have to live with his actions "for the rest of their lives".
Shinobu Kanazawa, 51, pleaded guilty to three charges, including the possession and transmission of child pornography, and using a carriage service in an offensive manner.
The former teacher is now facing sentencing in the ACT Supreme Court.
The court heard he had been viewing the exploitation material almost daily from 2006 until the time of his arrest in 2012.
Kanazawa - also a former ambassador for the Australian-Japanese alliance and for the Nara sister city program - gave evidence about his feelings of remorse and guilt on Monday morning.
He said he was under stress from his teaching job at the time of the offences.
But he told the court he would "never" reoffend, and felt very guilty, and very sorry to all the people who trusted him.
"I feel it's a horrible material, a very immoral thing," Kanazawa said.
"I do think it has victims, the children in the pictures, they were the victims of whoever produced them, whoever took them," he said.
The court heard Kanazawa also took images of young girls.
He told the court he knew how hard it was to get the pictures off the internet, once they were uploaded.
"That means those children have to live with them for the rest of their life, so the children are the victims," he said.
Kanazawa said he had since sought counselling, which was helping him develop strategies to cope with stress.
He said he did not sell or pay for the images, or show them to anyone else.
"It's a horrible experience, but before that I feel sorry for these victims as well as my family, who are affected emotionally," Kanazawa said.
"My behaviour caused so much trouble for everyone," he said.
The sentencing hearing continues before Chief Justice Helen Murrell on Monday afternoon.
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