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Home / New Zealand

Man 'abused and emotionally-depraved' as a child went on to share child porn

Corazon Miller
By Corazon Miller
Reporter·NZ Herald·
10 Sep, 2017 08:53 AM4 mins to read

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The appeal of a man sentenced to more than four years in jail for sharing child pornography videos with a covert detective will be heard next month. Photo / File

The appeal of a man sentenced to more than four years in jail for sharing child pornography videos with a covert detective will be heard next month. Photo / File

An Auckland man who had an "abusive and emotionally-depraved" childhood has been sentenced to jail after an undercover detective caught him supplying child pornography online.

Paul Michael Robinson, 28, shared 15 digital video files with the covert detective through a peer sharing application in early June 2016.

Court documents released to the Herald this week showed this led to a police raid on his property in October that year.

During the raid Robinson's three computers and an external hard drive were seized - on which a number of child pornography videos were found.

He was subsequently charged on 15 counts of supplying objectionable publications and 20 charges of possessing objectionable publications, which is in violation of the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993.

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The police prosecutor submitted 21, of 35, sex abuse videos that formed the basis of the charges showed "particularly depraved activities" including extreme sadism, bestiality and sexual acts between a child and adult.

Victims in the videos were aged between 2 and 14.

Robinson, who co-operated with police and pleaded guilty to all charges, was sentenced in the District Court at Waitakere, on May 29 this year, to four years and five months in jail.

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An appeal has been lodged and will be heard in the High Court at Auckland on October 2.

The court documents painted a picture of a man who had a tough upbringing and who between the ages of 6 and 13 went on to abuse young female family members and a friend.

Robinson was not prosecuted, because of his age, but underwent a rehabilitation programme and was removed from the family home.

He lived with his grandmother and uncle, until his grandmother's recent death in 2016.

The documents showed Robinson stayed out of trouble until these latest charges over the possession and distribution of pornography materials.

In the sentencing notes, Justice June Jelas said a psychological assessment revealed Robinson's childhood was marred by dysfunction.

"His mother is described as being neglectful and emotionally abusive towards him and his siblings."

She said Robinson had admitted his treatment through the Safe programme had given him insight into his actions.

"As a result he developed strong hatred and loathing for his mother and himself. The unintended consequence of this insight has not been addressed and had a severe negative impact on Robinson moving forward and is a contributory factor to the present offending.

"Robinson holds an extremely negative view of himself as a flawed individual. His preference is to immerse himself in a fantasy, in a visual reality world, as he finds himself inherently boring and uninteresting.

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"He believes that isolating himself is also a means of punishing himself and keeping others safe from him."

Justice Jelas said the report showed Robinson's sexual interests were for young females aged between 8 and 16, but because he was not having physical contact with anyone he viewed his current offending was not harmful.

A victim impact statement prepared by the police prosecutor said "every video of a child put before the court that the defendant has distributed or had in his possession, depicts an actual child being sexually abused, assaulted, degraded, exploited or tortured".

The police prosecution said the possession and distribution of child pornography has further victimised the child victims and "fuelled an international demand for such imagery".

In considering Robinson's final sentence the judge took into account the impact his upbringing had on his current offending.

She told Robinson there was clear evidence of a "strong link between your dysfunctional upbringing, your own offending when you were young and your response to the past rehabilitative programme".

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"You have sought to isolate yourself to prevent harm to others and considered no wrongdoing was caused by your acts that are now the subject of charges before the court."

But she said it "cannot be ignored that you were aware that sexual offending upon young persons was wrong".

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