Name suppression stays in porn case

The Crown has said it would not appeal against the suppression order granted to a prominent Manawatu man who downloaded more than 300,000 pornographic images, many of children.

Crown prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk said last night he would not be appealing against Judge Grant Fraser's decision to grant permanent name suppression on Friday, saying he weighed the principles of the case appropriately.

The man, who was charged with 25 counts of possessing objectionable material and one count of distributing pornographic images on the internet after an FBI investigation led to his arrest last year, was sentenced to four months' home detention in the Palmerston North District Court.

Many of the images had young naked girls posing in sexualised positions.

Judge Fraser said he granted suppression to protect the man's family, his mental state, his wife's job and his ability to rehabilitate.

Several advocacy groups have slammed the decision, saying the public are entitled to know who he was and that naming and shaming would act as a deterrent to others. Mr Vanderkolk said the judge had a number of principles he had to apply - including that of open justice - which he believed were weighed correctly on the facts of the case.

The real debate was on what the community wanted done about those principles and it was up to the Law Commission to recommend a law reform should they decide one was needed, he said.

"At the moment, name suppression is a discretion which judges have and in this case the principles were pretty clear and the judge is entitled to weigh those principles, those facts that he hears. In this case, there were personal circumstances, there were children of the defendant, the court had the benefit of psychological reports, the court knew what the consequences of the conviction were."

A spokesman for Justice Minister Simon Power's office said he supported the Criminal Procedure Bill, which is jointly conducted by the Ministry of Justice and the Law Commission and includes tougher laws for people applying for name suppression.

Cabinet would be looking at the recommendations later this year with a view to introducing it soon after, the spokesman said.