$10k costs sought after Invercargill man's wrongful child porn accusation

Invercargill District Court. Photo / ODT

A man wrongly accused of downloading explicit child pornography was charged on assumptions, bias and an incomplete investigation, his counsel says.

The Invercargill man, who has permanent name suppression, was arrested on December 15, 2020, after police were informed by the Department of Internal Affairs the material had been downloaded from his Mega cloud storage account.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Grant Gerken said at a criminal costs hearing in the Invercargill District Court yesterday that while the man did initially set up the account in August 2018, further evidence pointed to his former friend, Person A, as the offender.

"It seems the initial reason for setting up the account started around Person A wanting to upload pictures or videos, electronic material, relating to some of his (Person A's) ex-girlfriends or girlfriends," Gerken said.

"There was nothing to indicate the material was illegal. That was the basis for setting up the account."

It was eight months later, in April 2019, that the objectionable material was downloaded. In total 20GB of child exploitation material was accessed, Gerken said.

At his arrest, the man told police he believed no other person knew his email account or password.

Later, when evidence began to point to his friend, Gerken said police still needed to be sure the man was not a consort in the matter.

Further investigations revealed he was not, and the charges were dismissed on May 10, 2021.

"All the evidence suggests the defendant is innocent of the offence," Gerken said.

The man's counsel, Peter Redpath, said while the man initially could not think of anyone who would know his email and password, he did mention Person A's name to police when he was arrested.

Redpath wrote an email conveying the man's innocence and reiterating the belief he had been hacked.

The reply from Detective Senior Sergeant Kallum Croudis stated he had only dealt with 35 hacked offences in 38 years, showed a "totally instantaneous dismissive response being taken".

Person A had not been charged as his devices were destroyed.

The man is seeking $10,904.38 legal costs incurred. Judge John Brandts-Giesen reserved his decision.