Man with 106,000 child porn images avoids jail

File photo / NZ Herald

A St Albans professional man caught with 106,000 child pornography images on his computer has been granted home detention and name suppression.

There were tears and hugs as the 57-year-old man and his supporters found out at his sentencing by Judge Jane Farish in Christchurch District Court today that he was not going to jail, the Christchurch Court News website reported.

To get home detention, the man has had to agree to allow access by Department of Internal Affairs inspectors to his home to make checks on a monitoring system that will track the websites he visits on his home computer system. He will not be able to disable the tracking system.

Judge Farish said the man now appreciated the harm he was doing to the children involved by viewing the stored images created by people who had preyed on the children.

Most of the images were described as "level one", which involved children posing, but some were assessed as level four on the five-stage scale of seriousness of child abuse pornography.

Level four involves children involved in penetrative sexual acts by other children or adults. Judge Farish described these images as "grave".

The man had made no effort to hide the images on his computer. They were mixed in with other pornographic images he had been viewing, which would not have been classed as illegal.

He made full and frank admissions to inspectors who interviewed him after his computer was traced from a website overseas as having accessed the illegal images.

Judge Farish noted that the man was now assessed as having a minimal risk of reoffending after taking "extraordinary steps" to rehabilitate himself. Family, friends and his employer were aware of his offending. They were initially appalled and surprised, but continued to support him.

The man will have to undergo psychological counselling as directed as part of his five-month home detention sentence and will only be able to undertake approved employment. The judge said she thought this would mean no changes to his existing job and counselling arrangements.

She said she had received a confidential report on the effects of the publication of the man's name on himself and on other people.

Publication would affect his employment and the progress he was making to overcome depression.

She would not make details public, but said there could be "catastrophic consequences" on others.

"That is almost a guaranteed outcome," she said, granting the suppression.

She said the man had an "exemplary record" and had no convictions until he pleaded guilty to the 10 charges of possessing objectionable material.

- NZPA