Former charitable organisation member caught with child abuse images given home detention

A Department of Internal Affairs investigation into the activities of known paedophiles led them to a man sentenced today for receiving and making objectionable material. Photo / 123RF

A former member of a high-profile New Zealand charitable organisation has been sentenced to eight months’ home detention for possession and distribution of objectionable material, including images that showed children being sexually abused.

The man, whose name and previous occupation are suppressed, was found with more than 900 images and videos on three separate devices after a Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) investigation into two other people led them to him.

Some of the material depicted the sexual abuse of children, while further material involved babies and adults.

He had earlier admitted four charges of possessing objectionable material and two of distributing objectionable material, some of which were representative.

A request for a discharge without conviction at a sentencing indication hearing last November was declined.

The man, sentenced today in Wellington via video link from the Nelson District Court, avoided harsher penalty - including being added to the child sex offender list - for the steps he has taken to acknowledge his offending and the harm caused to victims by the creation and distribution of such material.

The Crown submitted the statutory test was met for registration on the child sex offender list, despite a psychiatrist’s assessment which suggested he was at low risk of reoffending.

There was also scepticism around claims he had no sexual interest in children, the Crown said.

The man’s lawyer said he had experienced sanctions unable to be imposed by any court including the loss of his job and a career he loved, plus loss of income.

“Despite his age, he still has substantial debts,” defence counsel Letizea Ord said.

She reiterated the defendant had been fully co-operative during the investigation process, having provided access codes to his devices to enable authorities to conduct a search, and he had admitted the offending from the outset.

The man was sentenced in Wellington via video link from the Nelson District Court. Photo / File

“He has shown genuine remorse and disgust at his own offending,” she said.

Ord added the majority of the material had been deleted, which Judge Jo Rielly noted in sentencing was an indication he intended to no longer view it, but as he had discovered, was not enough to wipe it entirely.

The images were later retrieved by forensic data extraction.

Judge Rielly said in July 2021 the DIA traced the man’s activities after his use of a specific online username while they were investigating two other people, categorised as paedophiles, from whom he appeared to have received material.

A search of his home revealed hundreds of incriminating images and videos on computer and phone devices, including several hundred files on his iPhone depicting sexual abuse and exploitation of children.

Most of the images involved male children, but some were female. Other images related to bestiality and of adult humans engaging in acts involving excrement and urine.

The distribution of objectionable material, including depictions of child sex abuse, was said to have occurred in 2020.

Between April and October 2020, he also received video images depicting sexual abuse of children and babies, and was said to have responded in a way that suggested he was sexually aroused by such material.

The man was not charged until almost a year after the search of his home.

Judge Rielly said it was well accepted that significant harm was caused to victims of such offending depicted in the images, even though most were not identified.

She said the defendant accepted if people weren’t prepared to view or possess such material, the creation and distribution would have no market.

Judge Rielly said that sadly, there were many cases like this before the courts, but each offender had unique circumstances.

From a starting point of three-and-a-half years in prison, the judge gave credit for a number of reasons, including the relatively short time the images were in the man’s possession, the relatively low-level offending and the fact he deleted the material in the belief it would no longer exist.

“But you know now, it did,” Judge Rielly said.

A discount was also given for the evident link between the offending and the abuse the man suffered as a child which led to his risky sexual behaviour.

She said it was clear the defendant had done everything he could to confront what he had done wrong, to acknowledge it was wrong and to seek out and engage fully in treatment.

“In doing so you had to divulge a lot of personal and tragic information about your past,” Judge Rielly said.

She also considered the man’s intention to donate a significant sum of money to two charities that helped victims of this kind of behaviour.

“I won’t direct that you pay this as I know you will.”

Judge Rielly said she did not for one moment minimise the seriousness of the man’s behaviour because it was serious, but she knew that he also knew that.

Conditions of his sentence of home detention included that he could continue to engage in voluntary work he was now involved with, and in regular exercise for the sake of his mental health.

His details would remain suppressed until the final determination of applications by the media to have it lifted.

A hearing was scheduled for late May.