Judge in child porn case steps aside after recognising man in public gallery

Connor Graham stored thousands of child sex abuse files on a cloud server. Photo / NZME

A judge has excused himself from passing sentence in a case involving thousands of child sex abuse photos and videos, after realising he knows members of the convicted man's family.

Connor Hayden Graham, 24, appeared in the Napier District Court for sentence after earlier pleading guilty to nine representative charges of possessing or distributing computer photo and video files depicting sexual abuse and exploitation, some of very young children.

The charges related to more than 9000 files, held on a phone or on social media or cloud storage accounts, which came to the attention of the Department of Internal Affairs after it was tipped off by law enforcement agencies overseas.

When Graham was brought before the court on Thursday, Judge Russell Collins was introduced to his paternal grandfather, who had come to support him and was sitting in the public gallery.

Judge Collins recognised Don Graham as a person he knew, and said that he knew other members of the family even better.

He said this meant there was "no way" he could sentence Connor Graham.

"I don't know you at all, but I know members of your family very well," Judge Collins told Connor Graham. "It's just not appropriate that I be the sentencing judge."

He remanded Graham to a new sentencing date of June 2, when he could be dealt with by another judge.

The Department of Internal Affairs' summary of facts said that some of the files in Graham's collection depicted the graphic sexual abuse of children aged from newly born to three years old. Others showed very young children being tortured or abused by adults or other children.

His activity on the phone and cloud storage sites spanned the years 2014 to 2021.

One of the extreme files in Graham's collection was a video of a girl aged about 12 months which had been created by Australian Peter Scully, who operated a pay-per-view child pornography website and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Philippines in 2016.

Graham used a photograph of a teenage girl from Napier to connect with people online. Once, when challenged by another user about his fake profile, he said he used it "so people will actually talk to me".

The charges against Graham were filed by Internal Affairs under the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993, which deems material that promotes or supports the exploitation of children for sexual purposes an objectionable publication.

Possessing an objectionable publication is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Knowingly distributing an objectionable publication has a maximum sentence of 14 years.