KEY POINTS:
A 28-year-old man has been jailed for two years and three months for repeat offending accessing child pornography on the internet.
John Louis Francis Schaper, who has worked as a computer systems administrator, wrote to Judge David Saunders saying that he was remorseful and now accepted the material he had viewed was destructive and had impacted on his life.
He now accepted that his behaviour was reprehensible.
"The real test is not the words you use, but the actions you put into place," said Judge Saunders at Schaper's sentencing on 28 charges of possessing objectionable images.
He hoped Schaper would be able to attend the Kia Marama programme for sex offenders during his prison term.
Alternatively, the Parole Board might decide to send him to the STOP programme as a special condition of his release under residential restrictions.
But he also hoped that Schaper would be released to a home where there was oversight and supervision.
He decided home detention was not suitable for the sentencing, because Schaper would have been living on his own at a flat where there could be difficulty monitoring his computer access.
He noted that Schaper had committed some of the offences while under supervision from an earlier court sentence.
Judge Saunders said the link between people who viewed this type of material and those who committed sex offences was still not established.
Defence counsel Tony Garrett said it had been worth taking the case to trial before a judge alone. There had been no previous ruling on whether viewing material and then deleting it from the computer - as Schaper had done - constituted legal possession.
There was no evidence that Schaper was a paedophile. Mr Garrett said there must be thousands of people who viewed pornography quite legitimately on their computers, but the extension of the crown argument was that they were all potential rapists. "And that's just ridiculous".
- NZPA
