20 months' jail for porn

Judge Harvey said even now Fraser was not fully accepting responsibility for the images. Photo / File

People who view, store or trade child sexual abuse images will go to prison for the "filthy" crime a judge has told a Kaitaia man he jailed for 20 months for having more than 300 appalling images of children being abused or naked.

Peter Stewart Fraser, 51, appeared for sentence in Whangarei District Court this week after earlier being found guilty by a judge on 10 counts of possessing objectionable material. The charges covered more than 300 images he had on his computer when police raided his Kaitaia home on October 6, 2010.

Judge Duncan Harvey said police chose 10 images for the charges with some of them portraying disgusting and highly degrading acts against and between children.

Judge Harvey said there was no doubt that if it wasn't for people like Fraser who were prepared to look at and store child sexual abuse images then children would not subjected to such appalling abuse.

"The evidence shows they were disgusting images."

Defence lawyer John Watson sought home detention for Fraser saying it was a viable sentence and any concerns about his client accessing the internet could be satisfied with strict conditions.

But Crown prosecutor Moana Jarman-Taylor said imprisonment was the only option to meet the principles of deterrence and denunciation in the Sentencing Act.

Judge Harvey said even now Fraser was not fully accepting responsibility for the images, although he did at least admit that he got sexual gratification from some of them, and as a judge he had to hold him accountable for his actions and deter others.

He sentenced Fraser to 20 months' jail, saying home detention was not an option.

"The reason for that is that the courts must do everything in their power to stop the filthy trade of child pornographic images," Judge Harvey said.

"And to make it very clear to people that are minded to look at, store or trade these images that if they do so and are caught they will go to prison."

He said home detention would not be enough of a deterrent to make clear to the community that this type of offending would not be tolerated by the courts.

Fraser had a previous conviction for indecent assault on a girl aged 12-16 in 1995.