Metal musician owned hundreds of child porn images and videos

Hundreds of photos and videos of child sex abuse were found on Philip Kusabs' phone. Photo / NZME

A New Zealand musician has been sentenced to 12 months home detention for owning and sharing child pornography.

Hundreds of photos and videos of child sex abuse were found on Philip Kusabs' phone, and police found he shared at least four videos, one of them nearly two minutes long, with others.

Kusabs, 49, was convicted on nine charges of copying and possessing objectionable material - some of them representative charges involving multiple offences.

He could have been jailed up to 14 years.

The Browns Bay, Auckland man appeared at the North Shore District Court before Judge Simon Maude today, with several support people sitting in the public gallery.

His lawyer Hannah Hellyer said the man's life has changed significantly as a result of the court proceedings.

He has been undergoing rehabilitation that will continue in home detention, and his probation officer has assessed his reoffending risk will "continue to fall with treatment", she said.

An RNZ article in 2014 said Kusabs was a self-taught sound engineer who had worked with a long list of bands, forming the Auckland black metal band Vassafor in the mid-1990s.

Police have asked for the man to be added to the child sex offenders' register, which will be decided in June.