KEY POINTS:
A 37-year-old Christchurch man says he was overwhelmed after accessing internet pornography and eventually took to viewing images of children in sex acts.
Christopher John Thomson was identified as a child pornography user by the German state police as part of their Operation Smasher. They passed the information to the New Zealand police who confiscated two laptops from Thomson on May 22.
The computers contained 27,500 images and about 9000 were found to be objectionable. Thomson pleaded guilty to 15 representative charges of possessing an objectionable publication and was sentenced in Christchurch District Court today by Judge David McDonald.
"The schedule of images lists girls as young as three or up to 12 in various poses or engaged in sexual activity, including sexual activity with animals. The images were the most objectionable that one could imagine," Judge McDonald said.
Defence counsel James Rapley said Thomson found he was overwhelmed by the amount of pornography he found on the internet. He told the probation officer he needed increasingly hard core images for sexual gratification.
Mr Rapley said Thomson now realised how he had harmed people by viewing the child pornography, and had been seeking help before his arrest. He was now unemployed, having lost his job as a result of the arrest.
Judge McDonald told Thomson Parliament had brought in a new law and heavier penalties for this offending.
"This was introduced because of the increased use of the internet by people like you who view child pornography which leads to young children worldwide being victimised to provide images that people like you then view.
"There are victims in this type of crime. People like you are viewing real people, real children."
He jailed Thomson for five months, granted leave to apply for home detention, and ordered the destruction of the two computers.
One of the family members who had come along to support Thomson was weeping in the public seats as he was led away to begin his sentence.
- NZPA
