Businessman sentenced to jail for having child exploitation material
Friday, 5 December 2025
A Wellington businessman sentenced on Friday to four years and eight months’ jail for having thousands of child exploitation videos, will not have to start serving the term until at least February.
Hearing his fate in the District Court, his lawyer immediately asked for bail pending an appeal against conviction and sentence.
Judge Nicola Wills instead deferred the start of the sentence for two months to allow time for an appeal.
She is yet to decide whether to suppress the man’s name but if that is refused the man’s lawyer, Christopher Stevenson, KC, said that decision would also be appealed.
Read more:
Home detention for having thousands of child exploitation images
Former professional man jailed for sharing child exploitation images
The Department of Internal Affairs prosecuted the man who was found guilty by the judge sitting without a jury. It was regarded as one of the more serious cases the department had dealt with, the judge was told.
The charges covered a four-year period, so although the man had no previous convictions the offending could not be seen as an “isolated fall from grace”, she said.
The judge said the material was grotesque, and some involved torture.
The man used cloud storage to keep the videos and had taken part in many chat groups.
His collection included an infamous series originating in Asia that showed the abuse of children aged 18 months to three years, including one victim who died as a result of the abuse, the judge said.
“To say this material is disturbing understates it by a significant magnitude,” the judge said.
The terrible abuse inflicted on infants and children only occurred because people like the man wanted to see it, she said.
She took into account that the man had tried to destroy evidence after his home was searched.
The sentence was reduced to take account of his trial being delayed due to Internal Affairs not disclosing certain material, and waiting about two months longer than was acceptable for the verdicts.
Stevenson had said the prosecution should have been stopped due to delay, and there was compelling evidence that someone else committed the offences.
As well as imposing a prison sentence the judge ordered the man’s phones to be destroyed and that he be registered as a child sex offender.