Child sex tourists are being warned they will end up in court after an Auckland man was found guilty of organising a tour to Thailand in a landmark case.
The 47-year-old estate agent, who has name suppression, was today found guilty of organising a tour with underage boys for an undercover policeman.
He is the first person in New Zealand to be found guilty of the charge, but was found not guilty of promoting sex tours through his website.
Judge Wylie, who heard the case without a jury at the High Court in Auckland over the past two weeks, delivered his verdict just after noon.
In his summary, he said the defendant was arrested after an undercover policeman posed as a client interested in a trip to Thailand to have sex with young boys.
It was the first and only tour arranged by the estate agent.
The accused is gay, and described his sexuality as ephebephilia - a sexual predisposition to teenage boys.
The policeman, under the assumed name Michael Gray, contacted the accused through the website and said he wanted to find a gay "young friend''.
After three meetings and much correspondence, the accused organised a tour around Thailand and Laos in August last year to show his client the gay scene.
The accused told Mr Gray he was happy to take him to Thailand and find him boys as young as 13 in Bangkok to take back to his hotel room.
After the first meeting in June, the estate agent sent an email saying he "didn't condone'' what Mr Gray spoke about, but would continue to organise the tour.
He later supplied Mr Gray with a sex phrase card that included a number of sexually explicit phrases for proposition.
The accused was found not guilty of promoting sex tours on his website because Judge Wylie ruled that although paedophiles could have been attracted to the site, the accused didn't intend that.
Detective Senior Sergeant John Michael, who runs the Online Child Exploitation Across New Zealand (OCEANZ) team said the guilty verdict was pleasing after a six-month investigation.
"Where we discover New Zealanders involved in child sex tourism offences and where there's evidence to prosecute them, then that's what we're looking to do - to send a deterrent message out there that you can't go to these vulnerable countries to sexually abuse children. It's just so wrong.''
He declined to say if other suspected child sex tourism offenders were under investigation, but said it was ``possible'' another person could be in court on similar charges within a year.
The founder of Stop Demand Foundation Denise Ritchie, who campaigned to get the Crimes Act changed to include child sex tourism charges, said a number of convicted paedophiles had left New Zealand and based themselves in Asia.
"This is a brilliant signal that the police will crack down on child sex exploiters.''
The accused has been remanded in custody until sentencing on February 14 next year and faces up to seven years in jail.
Judge Wylie denied him bail and indicated he would face "a long custodial sentence''.
