Husband caught looking at child porn, court told

A former district councillor was caught looking at computer images of naked teenage girls by his wife, a court has heard.

The court was told Juliet Robinson, who married Chris Campbell in 1998, became suspicious her husband was seeing other women.

She started looking at the websites Campbell was accessing on his computer and found "articles" of men having oral sex with their grand-daughters.

When confronted, Campbell - a former councillor in Rotorua - told Ms Robinson he had an anonymous number so the police could not track it.

One night Ms Robinson saw Campbell masturbating in front of the computer which displayed a picture of a naked girl who looked about 14. Campbell told his wife the girl was probably about 17.

Ms Robinson said she was so upset she left the house but Campbell convinced her to come home.

As time went on she grew more suspicious.

On another occasion she found images on his computer of men having sex with girls as young as four.

When she asked Campbell why he had not deleted the images he became angry and "fobbed me off", Ms Robinson told the Rotorua District Court.

She said Campbell told her he had a problem with pornography and asked her to help him. The couple sat down at the computer and Campbell deleted everything on it "from the young children to the porn sites".

A month later Ms Robinson found more pictures on Campbell's computer of four and five-year-old girls having oral sex with men.

The court was told Ms Robinson went to see a relationship counsellor after Campbell told her she was paranoid about him seeing other women.

In February 2001 the couple separated.

Campbell, 36, is appearing at a defended hearing. He has denied charges of having 73 images of child pornography stored on a hard drive on his personal computer, having three printed images of child pornography and three images of child pornography on a floppy disk.

During the first day of Campbell's hearing yesterday, Judge Chris McGuire dismissed a further charge of having 24 images of adults having sex with animals after an application was made by the police.

Under cross-examination by Campbell's lawyer, David Jones QC, Ms Robinson said she had stayed with Campbell despite what she had seen because he told her he looked at the pictures out of curiosity and did not have a problem.

"I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt... I wanted to believe him."

Ms Robinson denied putting pictures of child pornography on to Campbell's computer or that she had lied about what he had done.

"If this wasn't real, I would be married to Chris today," she said.

A few days after police seized Campbell's computer in June 2003, he spoke to his boss from Radioworks, Sharon Black.

Mrs Black told the court Campbell told her he had accessed child pornography sites and was concerned about what the police would find.

"He had been very upset with himself for what he had been doing and smashed his computer."

Mrs Black said Campbell's job as a radio announcer was already in jeopardy following complaints over text messages he had sent to two young teenage girls.

Mrs Black denied having a personal vendetta against Campbell.

"I think it's very sad what has happened. Chris is a very great broadcaster," she said.

The hearing continues.

- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)