Porn man's sentence an affront, says group

An internet webmaster who made more than $48,000 promoting sex abuse websites has been let off with a sentence which is an affront to victims, the Stop Demand Foundation says.

Philip Carlton Batty, 33, had been found guilty on 22 charges relating to possession and distribution of videos and pictures of children being sexually abused, women being raped and bestiality.

In the Auckland District Court yesterday, Judge Thomas Everitt sentenced Batty to 100 hours of community work and ordered he pay fines and costs totalling $6440.

Batty operated a free United States-based website which featured videos and pictures obtained from some 50 websites to which he provided links. Working from his Auckland home, he enticed people to pay to join those websites, which paid him a share of the subscriptions.

Batty told Department of Internal Affairs inspectors that for two years he had received at least $2000 a month in commissions. He had faced prison sentences of up to one year on each of four distribution charges and fines of up to $2000 on each of 18 possession charges.

The Stop Demand Foundation, which works to stop sexual violence, said Batty's punishment was an insult to rape and sexual abuse victims. Foundation spokeswoman Denise Ritchie said Batty had profited substantially from promoting the websites.

But the court had ordered him to do a "trifling" 100 hours of community work and the fine was a slap in the face for victims despite Batty admitting to having made at least $48,000 from his website, she said.

However, Internal Affairs said yesterday that the court had set an important precedent so internet criminals such as Batty could not hide behind a spurious "where is the internet" defence.

Batty had claimed New Zealand courts had no jurisdiction because the website he administered was based in the US.

This was the first such case the department had pursued under the Films Videos and Publications Act, and the result set a guideline for further cases, Internal Affairs said.

- NZPA