An 18-month jail term was today imposed on a 26-year-old man for possessing child sex abuse images that would have "irreparably damaged" the children involved, Judge Paul Kellar said.
He ruled out home detention for Nicholas David Dalton, of Avonside, Christchurch, saying that it was an inappropriate sentence.
Crown prosecutor Claire Boshier told Christchurch District Court the court the Crown believed it was not suitable to send someone back into the same environment where they had offended for so long. "It does not meet the purposes and principles of sentencing," she said.
Defence counsel James Rapley argued for home detention for Dalton, saying he had no previous convictions, a favourable pre-sentence report, and was assessed as a low risk of reoffending.
He said home detention would allow Dalton to continue to work as a customer service representative for a petrol firm, where he had no contact with children.
But Judge Kellar said he believed it was inappropriate to allow home detention, even with restrictions on access to computers.
Dalton possessed 4000 objectionable images of boys and girls, aged from six to 14 years, which included some images of penetrative sexual behaviour between children and adults.
He had pleaded guilty to 18 charges relating to these images, and the court was told that he had taken part in peer-to-peer filing sharing on-line.
Judge Kellar said: "The vulnerability of the children exploited for the images is obvious. The images that you possessed are disturbing and repugnant in the extreme.
"They depict children who will have been irreparably damaged by having to perform these acts.
"I don't think it is over-simplifying to say that if people were not prepared to view and possess these images there would be practically no market for their manufacture."
He noted that Dalton had fully co-operated with the Department of Internal Affairs which brought the prosecution, and had referred himself for treatment with a clinical psychologist.
He imposed the jail term, ordered Dalton to undertake assessment by a departmental psychologist and counselling as directed. He also ordered destruction of the material and forfeiture of the computer.
