Home detention for having thousands of the worst kind of child exploitation images

Wednesday, 19 March 2025

A mother has tearfully told a judge how hard it had been to find out her quiet and respectful son had thousands of child exploitation images.

In the Wellington District Court on Wednesday the woman said her son had been sexually abused and introduced to pornography at a very young age.

He was broken and shattered when he told her about his arrest.

But she was very proud of him standing up to face what he had done by having the images, she said. He was quiet, with a wonderful group of friends, a perfect gentleman to his partner and respected his mother, she said.

He pleaded guilty to five charges of knowingly having objectionable material.

The man, whose name and occupation were suppressed, had been caught in 2022 with more than 18,000 images, more than 12,000 of them showing the worst kind of child exploitation including of babies, Judge Noel Sainsbury said.

But the judge said the large numbers were only one way of gauging seriousness because files could be downloaded in bulk and the vast majority not even looked at.

The man’s collection included images that were truly disturbing and grotesque, he said.

The judge sentenced the man to 10 months’ home detention with conditions to take treatment as directed, to have internet-capable devices only with permission of a probation officer and to make any device available for inspection.

He could not associate with children under 16 unless in the company of a person his probation officer had approved.

His name would go on the child sex offender register while he continued treatment, to add a level of scrutiny over him, the judge said.

It was not victimless offending. People with an interest in child exploitation material created a market for abuse, he said.

He thought the man showed genuine remorse and an intention to do what it took to rehabilitate.

A jail sentence would risk undoing the good that had been done with treatment so far and he might be released without support, the judge said.

Defence lawyer Gretel Fairbrother said that since the man’s arrest he’d been having weekly counselling, and it was showing results.

Crown lawyer Lee van der Lem supported the home detention sentence so the man could have the treatment he needed, but spoke against suppression.