By SCOTT MacLEOD
An Auckland man who sold photos showing the torture and rape of toddlers has escaped a jail term because harsher penalties are yet to come into force.
The Department of Internal Affairs said Stephen John Laing, 21, was instead fined and sentenced to 350 hours of community work
after Judge Philip Recordon took into account his youth, his previously clean record, the small size of his collection and precedents from other court cases.
Laing pleaded guilty in Waitakere District Court to 29 charges of trading, advertising and collecting the images.
Officers who seized Laing's computer in August last year found 122 pictures of such crimes as the rape of children as young as three, toddlers being tortured and sex attacks on babies.
Judge Recordon said the children had suffered horrific abuse, and there would be no market for such images without peddlers like Laing.
The department said the judge told Laing that had he offended under penalties to be introduced soon, he probably would have been jailed.
The present maximum penalty for producing, copying or trading child pornography is one year in jail.
The new penalties, to be introduced before the end of the year, will give judges the power to send child pornographers to jail for up to 10 years.
The department said Laing was fined $3000, ordered to do 350 hours of community work and placed on supervision for two years, including attending counselling for sex offenders.
The judge rejected defence submissions and a probation recommendation that there was no need for psychological treatment.
This prompted calls yesterday for those who commit any such crime to be forced to undergo mental health assessments by specialists in sex offending. The director of the Internet Safety Group, Liz Butterfield, said the probation report showed that psychiatric assessments should be compulsory for sex criminals.
They should be done by sex offender treatment specialists, with the aim of catching "embryonic" criminals before they progressed to more serious crime.
"Our group feels very strongly that there have to be assessments before sentencing, tougher penalties and better public education."
The Safe Network, a sex-offender treatment programme, also called for compulsory assessment.
Director John McCarthy said 11 per cent of child pornographers went on to offend against children.
"We need to know if they are child sex offenders in the making," he said.
"Assessments are best done by those organisations that specialise in sex offending."
Ms Butterfield and Mr McCarthy supported Judge Recordon for ignoring the recommendations against psychological treatment.
But two groups against child pornography, Ecpat and Stop Demand, criticised Judge Recordon for not jailing Laing.
"Who is speaking for those babies, toddlers and infants?" said spokeswoman Denise Ritchie.
"There are no second chances for them."
The Department of Internal Affairs said Judge Recordon had given child pornographers a strong message that they could expect jail when the Films, Videos and Publications Classifications Act was beefed up this year.
The court ordered forfeiture and destruction of Laing's computer and objectionable material.
By SCOTT MacLEOD
An Auckland man who sold photos showing the torture and rape of toddlers has escaped a jail term because harsher penalties are yet to come into force.
The Department of Internal Affairs said Stephen John Laing, 21, was instead fined and sentenced to 350 hours of community work
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