![\"Where](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/where-to-get-help-for-sexual-violence-P4VYIU7UNJA3BPR5KIX3CLGAQA.png\")
<\/p>\nThe author behind an offensive novel depicting toddler role-play has been convicted but spared jail for penning child abuse material.<\/p>\n
Lauren Ashley Mastrosa, a 34-year-old former marketing executive for a Christian charity, wrote Daddy’s Little Toy under the pen name Tori Woods and published it through an online pre-release in March 2025.<\/p>\n
The book \u2013 which was read by a handful of advance readers \u2013 is about an 18-year-old woman named Lucy who role-plays as a toddler with Arthur, an older man who is her father’s best friend.<\/p>\n
Mastrosa appeared for sentence at Blacktown Local Court in western Sydney over two months after being found guilty of three child abuse material offences relating to the novel.<\/p>\n
Judge Bree Chisholm convicted the 34-year-old and imposed an 18-month community corrections order.<\/p>\n
“General deterrence looms large and the sexual exploitation of children even from such an unsuspecting defendant cannot be minimised,” she said.<\/p>\n
Mastrosa gasped as the sentence was handed down.<\/p>\n
She wore black and sat in the public gallery accompanied by her husband Adam during the hearing.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Tuesday, high-profile criminal barrister Margaret Cunneen SC asked the judge not to convict her client, arguing she had simply made a mistake.<\/p>\n
“She was planning to write an erotic book, she wasn’t planning to write child abuse material,” she told the court.<\/p>\n
There was no ongoing risk to the community as the books, which were about fictional characters, had been destroyed, Cuneen said.<\/p>\n
“She’s not a paedophile, she’s someone who wrote a book which offended against the law.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Where to get help for sexual violence. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Mastrosa wrote the book as an escape after being diagnosed with thyroid cancer and having multiple miscarriages, the court heard.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old lost her job as a marketing executive for Christian charity BaptistCare, had been exposed to online death threats and vitriol, and would never write anything like the book again, Cuneen said.<\/p>\n
Mastrosa was willing to undergo ongoing psychological treatment after being diagnosed with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder since her arrest, the barrister added.<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Milijana Masanovic pushed for a conviction.<\/p>\n
“The book speaks for itself. The matter’s an objectively serious one,” she submitted.<\/p>\n
The novel normalised child abuse material and fuelled the market of child exploitation, Masanovic said.<\/p>\n
She acknowledged character references shown to the court that described Mastrosa as a kind, charitable woman.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes good people can do bad things,” she said.<\/p>\n
In February, Judge Chisholm found that the book sexually objectified children.<\/p>\n
“The reader is left with a description that creates the visual image in one’s mind of an adult male engaging in sexual activity with a young child,” she ruled at the time.<\/p>\n
Mastrosa was found guilty of producing, possessing and distributing child abuse material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The author behind an offensive novel depicting toddler role-play has been convicted but spared jail for penning child…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-401445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}