Bay of Plenty early childhood reliever admits possessing 390 child sex abuse videos

A 22-year-old woman, who was working as an untrained teacher and reliever in Bay of Plenty childcare centres, has admitted to having hundreds of videos of child sexual abuse, accessed through encrypted social media apps.

Warning: This story deals with details of the sexual assault of children and may be distressing.

A young woman who worked in early childhood told police she has “a serious addiction to disgusting things” after she was found with nearly 400 videos containing child exploitation material.

There were 298 videos classed as the most serious type of this material, some involving toddlers and infants, and some showing sexual acts between animals and children.

The 22-year-old was working as a reliever and untrained teacher at childcare centres across the Bay of Plenty when her “addiction” was discovered by police.

There is no suggestion that any of the images she possessed involved children she knew or had contact with through her work.

An FBI investigation in Arkansas, United States, targeted a person she was in contact with over encrypted social media apps Telegram and Wire.

While having conversations on these apps, the pair also exchanged child sexual abuse material.

The young woman was arrested by police in October last year, while she was at work at a Mount Maunganui childcare centre.

Six electronic devices were seized in a search of her home.

Multiple videos and images were on two iPhones. The material had been accessed through encrypted social media apps Telegram, Wire, Wickr Me and Kik.

The material ranged from pre-pubescent children engaging in sexual acts with each other and performing acts on adults, to toddlers and infants being subjected to sexual offending by adults.

There was also material that involved sadism, torture and humiliation of infants, toddlers, and adult women.

Some of the material included bestiality with adults, toddlers, and infants.

The young woman appeared in the Tauranga District Court on Tuesday where she pleaded guilty to four representative charges of possessing objectionable material involving child exploitation.

The 22-year-old woman charged with possession child exploitation material has interim name suppression until her sentencing, later this year.

Her lawyer David Pawson asked for interim name suppression to continue until sentencing so that grounds for permanent name suppression could be explored.

Police discovered a total of 602 sexual videos on her devices, of which 390 were examined and deemed objectionable.

There were 298 classed as “category A”, which court documents said could involve either penetrative sexual activity, penetrative sexual activity with animals, or sadism. All of those types of exploitation were in the material discovered on her iPhones.

There were 95 objectionable images found on her devices, of which 52 were deemed category A.

Category B is for non-penetrative sexual activity, and category C is for “indecent images” not included in the first two classifications.

According to the police summary of facts, the young woman told police officers she has “a serious addiction to disgusting things”.

She has no previous convictions and has never been before the court.

The police are seeking the destruction of her devices.

‘The centre has been amazing’

A childcare centre where the woman had temporarily worked sent an email to parents after the woman’s arrest.

It said a detective from the police child protection unit had been in contact to alert them to the woman’s then-alleged offending.

“He disclosed to us that she is being charged with possession ... of objectionable material and child abuse images.

“He has reassured us that there has been zero evidence that she has taken any images herself and everything that she is accused of possessing and supplying are images she has sourced from the internet.”

A parent whose child attends the childcare centre said there had been good communication since news of the woman’s arrest broke.

“The centre has been amazing,” she said.

“Now when they get a reliever they let us know by email first.”

They also provided information about who the reliever was.

She said when the offending came to light she’d had questions like: “Were they with my child, did they do nappy changes, all that kind of thing”.

She’d been reassured that the reliever had done “outside duties” only, and hadn’t had the same level of contact with the children as the permanent staff.

She still “really liked” the childcare centre and felt they were taking all the steps they could to hopefully prevent something like this from happening again.

The centre did not want to comment.

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.