The Government needs to move quickly to increase sentences for traders and users of child pornography, says a group campaigning against child exploitation.
A spokeswoman for End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking, Denise Ritchie, said the 26-month jail sentence given to Christchurch computer technician Dustin Arthur Barrett for trading sexual images
of children over the internet was too light.
Barrett, 30, was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court this week after admitting 87 counts relating to objectionable publications.
Internal Affairs seized his computer in 2001 acting on information supplied by Scottish authorities.
But Ms Ritchie said the sentence was far too light, especially since Barrett had images on his computer named "diapers" and "3-year-olds" and he had already spent one year in prison for similar crimes.
"When you look at 26 months for material that involves large numbers of children who have been sexually violated, that's pretty paltry really."
But she said the law rather than the judge was to blame for the light sentence. Under present New Zealand law, traders in internet porn could only be sentenced to a maximum of one year in prison for a single offence and it was only through being convicted of multiple charges that Barrett received 26 months' prison.
In Canada and Britain, people who traded in child porn could face up to 10 years in prison and people who possessed objectionable images could face up to five years in prison, she said. In New Zealand, people who possessed images of children but did not trade in them could only be fined.
Ms Ritchie said the Government announced this year that it would amend the Films, Videos, and Publications Classifications Act to increase maximum sentences, but she had not heard of any progress.
A spokesman for Justice Minister Phil Goff said the amendment could be introduced to Parliament within weeks.
If passed, it would increase the maximum prison sentence for trading child pornography from one year to 10 years. The maximum penalty for possessing sexual images of children would be two years' prison.
But it could take some time to pass through a parliamentary select committee because of the many people wanting to make a submission on its content, the spokesman said.
- NZPA
