Sex content left on phone

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An 11-year-old girl whose cellphone was stolen from her classroom had it returned full of explicit sexual material.

The Christchurch girl had left her phone with teachers at the start of the day, in accordance with school rules, but it was stolen by a male classmate.

When the phone was eventually returned without its Sim card, the girl's father inserted his own one and made the shocking discovery.

The phone contained photos of girls wearing lingerie and a picture of a boy cuddling three girls in front of a mirror. What was "more disturbing" was six videos of girls performing sex acts, the man said.

"I was horrified ... they hadn't been deleted. My daughter said the boy in her class had given the phone to his older brother. I understand he's at high school and 17 years old.

"It seems another Sim card had been inserted but the boy had forgotten stuff had been copied on the phone itself, because when I turned it on I found lots of text messages and videos."

The father mentioned the "unsavoury" material to teachers but decided not to take it further: "It wasn't my place to get the boy in any more trouble with his parents."

The school's principal confirmed a cellphone had been stolen but said he had no idea there had been explicit material left on it.

"If I'd known that I would have referred it through the appropriate channels and that would involve the police."

The principal of the unnamed intermediate school added that the school ran a cyber safety programme to help students make good choices about what they viewed online.

Netsafe operations manager Lee Chisholm said access to technology had become easier and cheaper for a range of devices and if young people were determined, it wasn't possible to stop them from accessing them.

"It's important for parents to talk to their children about why pornography is unrealistic and why you can't base relationships on what you see online."

The father said he had raised the issue on an internet forum as many parents were unaware that their children were being exposed to sexual content.

He said: "Given access to media and modern forms of communication, young people are probably viewing and interacting in ways that would surprise a lot of people."

He called it a "sign of the times we live in".

The schoolboy was stood down for three days and admitted what he had done wrong to his classmates.