A "depraved" man with child sex and porn convictions has been caught again with illegal material.
Ross Alexander Mundy, 48, a kiwifruit contractor from Te Puke, pleaded guilty in Tauranga District Court yesterday to 24 charges of knowingly possessing objectionable materials.
The charges are the latest in a string of offending by Mundy.
Over the past decade he has been convicted and jailed for grooming a girl for his own gratification, offering a child as a sex toy on the internet and possessing illegal images and was once described by a Tauranga judge as "sick" and "depraved".
Mundy's latest crimes came to light on April 4 last year when a Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) investigator was checking the internet for New Zealanders offering and sharing child sexual abuse publications. The particular application the inspector searched allows users to share and download folders containing text files, moving images and music files containing objectionable materials.
Mundy was identified as one of those using the application and sharing child sexual abuse files. When the inspector downloaded 20 picture files being shared, 18 were found to be objectionable as they depicted children engaged in sexual acts and poses.
During a search of Mundy's home on May 18 last year computer units, a laptop and other media storage devices and CD Roms were seized and searched. The seized computer and other items contained about 100 current and deleted objectionable files. Six of the charges Mundy admitted relate to a sample of those files. Mundy was not at home at the time but when later questioned he admitted using a file sharing application.
Mundy claimed he was unaware he was sharing objectionable files with other users but acknowledged that the 20 files the inspector downloaded came from his computer. He conceded he knew what he was doing was illegal and said his offending had happened at a time when he was "depressed and down in life," due to "lack of work and money".
Crown prosecutor Sarah Simmers told Judge David McKegg yesterday that bail was opposed in light of Mundy's previous conviction.
But Mundy's lawyer Tony Balme successfully argued for his client to be allowed to remain in the community pending sentencing on May 21.
Mr Balme said Mundy was currently working fulltime as a kiwifruit contractor supervising a gang of 20-30 people and was also undergoing "quite intensive" rehabilitative therapy with a psychologist and his GP.
He argued that it was far better for the community that Mundy be allowed to continue to do so while awaiting sentence as the therapy would not immediately be available if he was held in custody.
Judge McKegg said he was persuaded to grant Mundy bail but made no promises about the sentencing outcome.
Mundy was bailed on strict terms which includes a ban on him possessing any equipment with online network facilities and he is also barred from accessing any online accounts. The charges each carry a maximum sentence of five years' prison.
Litany of shame
* In 2004, Mundy offered a boy aged 7 as a "pleasure toy" to be drugged and sexually abused when he sent emails containing pictures of the child naked.
His excuse for inviting others to the Western Bay to abuse the child, as well as possessing more than 1300 images of children being raped, was that youngsters "were young and pretty".
He pleaded guilty in Tauranga District Court to 41 child pornography charges. Mundy failed in a bid to be freed on bail while he waited to appeal his sentence. The judge who dealt with him, Judge Peter Rollo, described him as "sick" and "abhorrent and depraved."
* Slightly more than two years later, Mundy was back in court and jailed after grooming a young girl for his own sexual gratification.
He was jailed in the High Court at Rotorua for 13-and-a-half months jail after earlier pleading guilty to offences including making the girl, who is under 12, look at pornography on his computer. He also pleaded guilty to inducing her to do an indecent act on him and three charges of attempting to get her to do indecent acts on or with him. Mundy told a probation officer that he began looking at computer pornography and got hooked. The offences happened between 2001 and 2003.