Former business tycoon Sir Ron Brierley is due to appear in court charged with alleged possession of child pornography. Video / David Fisher
Detectives are poring through thousands of newly discovered images following the arrest of Kiwi businessman Sir Ron Brierley on child porn charges, a court has been told.
Brierley, 83, of Point Piper, was mentioned in Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday after being charged with six counts of possessing child abuse material.
The Kiwi-born retired multi-millionaire was arrested by police when he was about to board a flight to Fiji at Sydney airport last December after a tip-off to Crime Stoppers.
Police allege in court documents Brierley possessed photographs and videos of young girls aged between around 2 to 15 along with word documents of typed stories that spoke of the rape of children.
The court was told authorities had seized 20 electronic devices and had already sifted through more than 680,000 images to look for child abuse material after his arrest.
In court, prosecutor Kenny Ng asked for an adjournment because police needed more time to examine more computer files after at least 25,000 extra images were discovered in July.
"It's a matter that involves a very large amount of electronic material," he said
"I'm told by the (officer in charge) that there are another 44,000 photos that require analysis.
"I'm asking for eight weeks so that those materials can be extracted and analysed."
However, Brierley's defence lawyer Lisa-Claire Hutchinson said prosecutors could instead use a representative sample of the material seized to speed up the court process.
"No satisfactory explanation has been offered for the delay," she said.
"There is no complexity to the access of these devices, we're talking about USBs, tablets.
"The option was available to the prosecution to proceed on the basis of a representative sample and they have chosen otherwise."
Magistrate Michael Antrum questioned the delay but agreed to adjourn the matter.
"It's in circumstances where there is a substantial number of alleged images of child abuse material," he said.
"It surprises me that an individual review is taking place (of all the images).
"That's a matter of the discretion of the director (of the DPP) … I understand the time sought today in the scheme of things is not unreasonable."
