Whangārei man Paul Burton - who is serving time for possessing child sexual abuse images - has had one of his electronic devices returned after appealing its seizure. Photo / File
A Northland man who made himself a key character in a story he wrote about the abduction, rape and trafficking of a young girl before sharing it on social media has applied to the court to have computer storage devices seized by police returned.
During sentencing by Judge Keith de
Ridder it was revealed that during a search of Paul Burton's Waipū home, police had found more than 39,000 images on two cellphones, a tablet and external hard drives showing children, mainly girls, engaged in sexual acts with men.
Burton, aged 62, pleaded guilty to charges of making an objectionable publication, distributing an objectionable publication and six representative charges of possessing objectionable material involving child sexual abuse and in January was sentenced to three years and nine months' jail.
Burton's electronic devices were seized by police. However, Burton appealed, saying not all his computer storage devices seized by police and subject to the forfeiture order contained objectionable publications.
Justice Brewer said since the appeal was filed, police had examined the computer storage media identified and found three of them contain objectionable images but one does not.
