NZ and German action leads to conviction of Paeroa man for trading child pornography

17/01/2003
Department of Internal Affairs and German Police action today led to the conviction in the Waihi District Court of a Paeroa man on 12 charges of advertising and trading child pornography.

His computer had 679 pornographic images of children, including pictures of four-year-old girls being sexually abused by adult men, and young children being forced into sexual acts with each other.

The General Manager of the Department’s Gaming and Censorship Regulation group, Keith Manch, said that this case highlights that users of Internet child pornography cannot hide in rural areas or small towns.

“Just as the Internet has improved communications and makes trading child pornography easier, it also helps enforcement agencies,” Mr Manch said. “Offenders leave an electronic trail that agencies can track. Just because we don’t have an office in a particular area does not mean we cannot find people using Internet child pornography there.

“Also, enforcement agencies, like the offenders, can share information internationally very quickly. In this case, information shared between us and German police led to a man in Paeroa.”

On February 10 last year a Department Inspector detected a New Zealander, who used the nickname “Servin”, operating in the area of the Internet relay chat using a channel dedicated to trading child pornography.

Three days later the German Police Computer Crime Squad detected the same New Zealander, then using the nickname “Serviz”.

The New Zealander was advertising that he was willing to trade child pornography and that he was running an automated file server that allowed others to enter his computer and trade files.

Department staff traced the man to a Paeroa address, identified him and executed a search warrant on his home. Computer hard drives, floppy disks and printed files were seized in the search.

On October 18 he pleaded guilty to 12 charges under the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act, which prohibits child pornography.

Today the Court ordered 200 hours of community work on all 12 charges and ordered forfeiture and destruction of the seized hard drives, floppy disks and printed files. He was also ordered to pay $500.00 towards prosecution costs.

Mr Manch said there should be no doubt in the public mind about the nature of child pornography and why it is illegal.

“To create each image a child is sexually abused and collecting the images creates a ‘market’ that incites more abuse.

“Trading child pornography is seldom about making money. It is about offenders constantly expanding their collections and searching for increasingly extreme images.

“The objective of the law is to help protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation.”


Media contact:

Keith Manch
General Manager Gaming and Censorship Regulation
Cellular 027 445 6420

Karen Wishart
Corporate Communications
Phone 04 494 0522
Cellular 027 416 0149