A “predator” Auckland film-maker jailed for possessing and distributing hundreds of graphic child sex abuse photos and videos was acquitted on similar charges in 2002, the Herald can reveal.
Rajneel Singh was sent to prison last week for three years and three months after a successful police prosecution of his online offending.
It’s emerged the 46-year-old, who has worked as an actor and directed kids’ TV shows, was sharing the material on encrypted data apps with people he’d met on a kink and fetish website.
When police raided his Mt Roskill house in March 2023, they found 554 child exploitation files saved on his devices, many of them depicting the most serious category of graphic abuse.
But an old friend of Singh’s, Natalie Atkins-Prescott, told the Herald the “predator” had been investigated more than 20 years earlier for similar offending and hauled before the court after an investigation by the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA).
Atkins-Prescott, 47, was called as a prosecution witness to give evidence against her then friend at his 2002 trial at Manukau District Court.
She believed the trial was a “farce”, claiming crucial evidence was lost and feeling her own testimony helped to “exonerate” Singh.
Giving evidence, she told the court the computer that DIA investigators had seized and found child exploitation material on was in a common area of Singh’s Howick family home and used regularly by visiting schoolmates from Macleans College.
“The defence was able to prove that every single one of his friends had unmonitored access to his computer and he was found not guilty.”
Atkins-Prescott, who has known Singh for 33 years, said the skilled manipulator had convinced associates he was innocent of the earlier charges.
He claimed he’d been sharing information in ICQ chat rooms and didn’t know how the objectionable files ended up on his computer, saying “he’d probably been hacked”.
She had wanted to believe her friend at the time, who had never displayed signs of predatory behaviour before, or in the years since his 2002 prosecution.
“He played the lovable loser, that genuinely nice guy who just couldn’t get a break.
“He would constantly say he’d met this girl or, ‘Why can’t I get a date?’ And I believed it.”
But Atkins-Prescott now thinks it was “all an act” and that the popular film industry worker had been living a sinister double life.
She felt it was likely he’d been offending in the years since his acquittal and she hoped his “predilection” for child abuse material did not move beyond the confines of the digital realm.
“I’m just hoping that for him it was pure fantasy and communicating with other paedophiles and sharing pictures and discussing fantasies, rather than breaking out into a physical world. But you never know. I pray that’s all it is.”
The fact Singh had been charged with similar offending two decades ago was telling, Atkins-Prescott believed.
“It wasn’t just some poor sap who got himself caught up” in accidental file sharing.
“This is a long-term history of clearly predatory behaviour.
“I’ve learned that once there’s smoke there’s fire. But I didn’t believe it. I shiver to think what he’s done.”
While Atkins-Prescott had stood by Singh over the years, the penny finally dropped last year when she received a message from another of Singh’s old friends, screenwriter Annamarie Connors.
After learning Singh had been charged in January 2024, Connors kicked Singh out of their shared house and messaged Atkins-Prescott to say Singh was in trouble and to “be careful”.
“I messaged her back and said, ‘Is this about CP [child pornography], and she said, ‘How the f*** did you know that?’”
Suppression orders prevented the women from issuing a public warning to friends and colleagues, so Atkins-Prescott kept Singh as a Facebook contact so she could “spy” on him to monitor his activity and help keep others safe.
Both women attended his sentencing hearing last week at Auckland District Court and immediately posted public messages about the case when he lost suppression and was sent to prison.
“He’s a predator, please spread it far and wide,” Atkins-Prescott told the world.
After Singh’s most recent arrest, she was interviewed by police because of their long-standing connections.
“I said, ‘Do you know he’s done this before?’ And they said, ‘No’.”
Knowing what she does now about Singh’s history and offending, she felt “stupid” for missing the signs.
“It’s a trip and it makes me feel like an absolute fool.
“I don’t feel betrayed, I am just absolutely sickened. It’s basically been a gut punch, especially knowing how long he’s been doing this.
“And I just feel a bit stupid. Why didn’t I see that? Why wasn’t it on my radar?
“He was a friend, he was a friend to me. It’s just that he was a f***ing monster.”
Police referred the Herald to DIA in relation to the earlier charges and trial.
In a statement, a DIA spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that the Department of Internal Affairs’ Digital Safety team led an investigation and prosecution into Mr Singh. Mr Singh was subsequently found not guilty at a judge-alone trial.”
Lane Nichols is a senior journalist and Auckland desk editor for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
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