Jailed dealer had 30,000 images

A Nelson man jailed for trading in child pornography collected images like children collect trading cards.

The investigator who searched the hard-drive of Jason Gorman's home computer said he could have saved as many as 30,000 images.

Gorman had a program that allowed other collectors worldwide to use his computer like a library. In return, he got to choose images from their collections.

The father of three - a son and two stepdaughters - put a lot of effort into his porn library.

Brenda Read, the Internal Affairs Department investigator who interviewed Gorman, said he was meticulous in the way he filed the images.

Some were filed under the names given to the victims, allowing other collectors to amass material depicting abuse of a particular child.

Investigators seized Gorman's computer and CD-Roms in November 2002.

When Ms Read first interviewed Gorman, who was described in court as a yard co-ordinator, he denied he had child sex-abuse images or that he was trading them.

"He was cool, calm and collected," says Ms Read.

The trail that led to Gorman started nine months earlier when he offered to trade pictures of child abuse with an inspector in the department's censorship and compliance section.

The contact had been made on an internet chat channel dedicated to trading such material.

An investigator, who did not want to be named, said: "Our guy is among them, looking for anyone from New Zealand who might be floating around in there."

Gorman's demise began in February 2002, when he sent the inspector a picture of a child being abused, and asked to trade.

The inspector detected Gorman again in June 2002. Gorman sent the inspector another picture, told him his preference was for children aged 8 to 14 and advised on encryption software to hide material.

In the ensuing months the computer in Gorman's house was identified as one being used for trades.

When confronted, Gorman initially denied any involvement, so Ms Read interviewed his wife.

"She had no idea [about the offending]."

Gorman's wife subsequently left him and took the children.

Gorman had about 30,000 encrypted files on his computer, at least 5000 of which depicted child abuse.

Gorman later admitted sending pictures to the undercover inspector.

Two of 17 convictions for distributing objectionable material related to those incidents.

The others were based on evidence on his computer.

Gorman was sentenced last week to the maximum of one year in prison, prompting calls for toughening penalties.