Elderly man jailed after Facebook sex abuse

Dennis John Batchelor. Photo / Geoff Sloan

A 73-year-old Christchurch man who posed as a teenage girl on Facebook, friending and convincing a local girl to show him sexualised videos, has been jailed for three years.

Dennis John Batchelor appeared in Christchurch District Court where he was sentenced to three year's imprisonment, stemming from 30 charges related to making, distributing and possessing objectionable publications.

American authorities last year alerted New Zealand's Internal Affairs Department to Batchelor posting multiple objectionable images on a Facebook page where he posed as a teenage girl.

Batchelor befriended an American man and a Christchurch teenage girl through his online profile.

Sexualised videos of the Christchurch girl and of the American man abusing his two-year-old daughter were found on Batchelor's computer.

The American man, who also talked about abusing his older daughter, was arrested by US authorities.

On sentencing Batchelor Judge Paul Kellar said the images were as bad as they could get.

His risk of reoffending was high, Judge Kellar said.

Internal Affair regulatory services general manager Maarten Quivooy said the case was a warning to people to be careful about who they friend and what they post on social networking sites.

"People need to know who they are talking to and to remember that once you post on-line it's out of your control and you can't get it back," he said.