Computer technician admits child porn charges

Kapiti Coast computer technician has admitted searching customers' computer hard drives and copying images of naked children and pregnant women to share with an international porn trading ring.

The images, stolen by 47-year-old Ian Mead over a period of a few years, included innocent and personal pictures of naked toddlers, young children and teenagers, Porirua District Court was told today. Others were of pregnant women, both clothed and naked.
About 120,000 videos and pictures were found on computer hard drives owned by Mead when police raided his home in February last year. They ranged from naked children to hardcore porn including rape and sexual violation, and bestiality involving children.

Police said Mead ran a computer retail and repair shop at Raumati Beach from 2004, and while he scanned customers' computers for personal pictures he was also involved in an international pornographic file sharing ring.

Mead, who has been living in Hastings on bail, had stored his images under categories such as "zero to two toddler", "three to five Asian", "pre-teen" and "pregnant".

Police also found thousands of deleted and encrypted files.

Mead pleaded guilty to dozens of representative charges over his offending.

His lawyer Gary Turkington indicated he would seek a sentence of home detention when he appears in Wellington District Court again on March 26.

Police said some of the families affected by Mead's actions had been tracked but others were others were unaware of what happened.

- NZPA