Anti-child porn group critical of inadequate sentence

Lobby group ECPAT NZ, an organization combating child pornography, is frustrated by another sentence it labels as “woefully inadequate”.

ECPAT NZ spokesperson, Denise Ritchie, says “It was an encouraging sign that the Government recently announced that current penalties for traders and possessors of child pornography are out of step with the gravity of the offences and are about to receive a sharp increase. While the laws have not yet been amended, it was a clear signal to the judiciary that this country needs to take child pornography offending seriously.”

“It seems however that the message is being ignored by some members of the Judiciary. It was open to the Judge in this case to hand out a prison sentence to Earl Intemann on the trading offences. Instead the Judge imposed a woefully inadequate sentence of a $2,500 fine and 200 hours community sentence.”

“In so doing”, says Ritchie, “the Courts are sending a strong and unacceptable message to the community that swapping images of 4-10 year old girls being sexually abused by adult men is a mere trivial misdemeanour. Not only have these young girls being sexually abused in order to create these images. Trading these images, for the sexual gratification of others, is a further abuse.”

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