Asian comics part of child sex abuse image collection

21 August 2014

A Hastings chef has been sentenced to 10 months imprisonment today at the Hastings District court for possessing online child sex abuse images.

The 30-year-old Flaxmere man, pleaded guilty to 15 sample charges of possessing objectionable publications, which included pictures and videos of young children being sexually abused.

An Internal Affairs inspector came across the offender in 2012 on Internet file sharing areas. He traced him to his family home where computer equipment – including his parents’ laptop – was seized. His parents’ computer showed offending going back to early 2010.

Apart from objectionable images of children, his computers had many Asian comics with children being sexually abused in family situations and computer-generated images of incestuous explicit sexual activities.

The court ordered the computers be forfeited and destroyed while the Department intended to forensically clean the parents’ laptop and return it to them.

Community Safety Manager, Steve O’Brien said possessing child sex abuse imagery is not a victimless crime.

“It involves real children forced into degrading acts. All forms of child sex abuse imagery are an exploitation of children. Trading or viewing these images condones the abuse children suffer. If you deal in this material you can expect to get caught. No matter what you do everything is traceable on your computer.”

Notes:

We strongly encourage the use of the phrase “online child sex abuse” and not “child or kiddie pornography,” because the word pornography:

• downplays child sexual abuse. Most of the public is unaware of the seriousness of this type of offending which includes images of oral, vaginal and anal sex, sometimes bondage, bestiality and sexual torture.
  
• indicates legitimacy and compliance on victim’s part, suggesting legality on abuser’s part. These are criminal acts and each act is a crime scene.
  
• conjures up images of children posing in ‘provocative’ positions, rather than capturing horrific abuse and suffering. Victims suffer physical and emotional abuse with the impact often staying with them for life.

The Department has an international reputation for its work investigation online child sex abuse.

Media contact:

Sue Ingram, Communications Account Manager
Direct Dial: +64 4 494 0584 | Mobile: +64 27 541 4696 | Email: sue.ingram@dia.govt.nz