Daniel John Pritchard turned away from media today at his sentencing in the Hutt Valley District Court. Photo / Hazel
Daniel John Pritchard turned away from media today at his sentencing in the Hutt Valley District Court. Photo / Hazel
Warning: This story contains content about child exploitation material and animal abuse.
When police noticed a man in his car watching porn they seized his phone - only to later discover it contained exploitation images and videos,some he had made of himself and his family dog.
The discovery came a year after police had already discovered thousands of other objectionable images and videos on devices at his home.
Today Daniel John Pritchard was sentenced in the Hutt Valley District Court to two years and two months imprisonment on 35 charges, the majority of which were possessing objectionable material.
Images found on his devices depicted graphic fetish material, exploitation images of young people, animals and some of his own personal videos.
The 50-year-old was also sentenced on multiple charges of knowingly making or copying the material, and one each of doing an indecent act in public, indecency with his family dog and resisting police arrest.
Police uncovered the majority of his disturbing collection in June 2020 when they searched his home in Naenae for an unrelated matter.
Multiple electronic devices were seized, with one phone containing more than 55,000 images and more than 4,100 videos.
Pritchard had deleted 3338 images from the device, many were identified by their titles to do with “young nudists or children nudist sites”.
Of the remaining viewable number, around 52,000, an estimated quarter of which were pornographic. Due to the sheer volume only a small portion of the images were viewed by police. The videos contained child exploitation material and fetish videos.
Pritchard shared a number of publications and images, some a total of 10 times over dating app Grindr, to four other users in discussions of swapping pictures of young girls and having sex with young people.
According to the summary of facts, Pritchard later told police he just searched Google and “that is what came back”. He also didn’t think the images were objectionable.
A year later his sexually deviant actions, often done while high on methamphetamine, came to the attention of police again.
He was sentenced today in the Hutt Valley District Court. Photo / RNZ
In June 2021 Pritchard was at home when he filmed three videos of himself having a sexual encounter with his elderly dog.
The videos, a total of six minutes long, and further objectionable material were discovered a month later when police seized his phone after he was caught by police watching porn while sitting in his car at an Upper Hutt Park.
The New Zealand Police Digital Forensics Unit examined the phone, uncovering several “files of interest” deemed to be objectionable material in addition to his home videos.
Other charges included one of an indecent act when he exposed his genitals on Cuba Street and, using vegetable oil as a lubricant, began masturbating in public. He attempted to evade police when they tried to arrest him, but he was captured after he tripped and fell.
His lawyer Steve Gill tried to argue against Pritchard being placed on the sex offenders register, but was unsuccessful.
Gill said even though some images contained children, “he certainly hasn’t gone to the community and posed a risk to children per se”, and his client’s upbringing and addictions contributed to his offending.
“All of these have affected his ability to know right from wrong.”
Judge Arthur Tompkins said Pritchard had an extensive criminal history that traversed a wide spectrum of offending, and that his actions for the set of charges he faced caused “undoubted harm”.
A history of offending
Pritchard isn’t a stranger to the court. In 2020 he was sentenced in the same courtroom for performing an indecent act in front of school children, filming them and their reactions in the process. He told police he was on drugs that day and didn’t remember doing it.
Daniel John Pritchard three years ago when he was sentenced in the same courtroom. Photo / Melissa Nightingale
He was sentenced to nine months imprisonment for the offence as well as a second charge of performing an indecent act in his car when he was spotted by a runner near Petone Beach.
Six years earlier he was sentenced to community detention and intensive supervision for exposing himself to a woman after consuming drugs.
Judge Tompkins acknowledged his criminal history today saying “there is a recurring pattern”.
Hazel Osborne is an Open Justice reporter for NZME and is based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington. She joined the Open Justice team at the beginning of 2022, previously working in Whakatāne as a court and crime reporter in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
