Bay child sex voyeur nabbed in net sting

By COURT REPORTER
A Tauranga man caught in an international police internet sting has admitted downloading more than 800 child pornography movies and more than 200 sexual text stories involving children.
Warren Neil Smith, 50, retired of Gate Pa, pleaded guilty to 15 representative charges of possessing objectionable publications when he appeared in Tauranga District Court yesterday.
The court was told that during August 2005 German police investigated an internet forum that was trading and offering links to a website for people to access and download child sexual abuse movies.
Smith was one of number of New Zealanders German police found had been logging on to the website and downloading movies.
On November 9 last year, a search warrant was executed at Smith's home and a computer unit was seized along with CDs, zip disks and documents.
When questioned about the items, Smith stated he downloaded and watched movies and pictures of all sorts and then tried to delete them.
He stated he did not know what was on his computer as most of these files were either in zip files or rar files, which have to be saved and then opened to see the contents.
Smith admitted he had viewed pictures and movies of children involved in sexual acts or poses in the past but had deleted then through a security program.
Smith confirmed he knew it was illegal to knowingly download or save such files and stated if you do it unknowingly they have to be deleted securely.
On the seized computer, adult pornography was found under a folder called "spare".
More than 800 movies consisting entirely of children engaged in sexual acts and poses and more than 200 sexual text stories involving children were found under a main folder called "security links".
Although he has had no previous court appearances for offences of this kind, Smith had a number of previous appearances for other criminal matters.
Crown prosecutor Duncan McWilliam told Judge Joanna Maze that in light of the fact that at least 50 per cent of all similar breaches of the Films, Videos and Publications Classifications Act resulted in a term of imprisonment, a full pre-sentence report was warranted before sentencing Smith.
But Mr Holmes urged Judge Maze to sentence his client yesterday arguing that because Smith's offending did not involve the creation or sale of objectionable materials, this put it at the lower end of the scale and a non-custodial sentence was still open to the court.
Judge Maze disagreed and told Mr Holmes that, given the scale of Smith's offending and recent prison sentences handed out for far lesser offences, she required a full pre-sentence report.
The judge remanded Smith on continued bail for a pre-sentence report and sentencing on August 15 and told him all sentencing options would be open to the court on that date.
Smith's neighbours, spoken to by the Bay of Plenty Times, said they were surprised to learn he had pleaded guilty to downloading child pornography movies.
They said Smith kept himself to himself and that it was believed he was married.
One resident said she thought he had lived in the street for a number of years and was currently living in his second house on the street.
There was no answer when the Bay Times visited Smith's house this morning.