A man living at Centrepoint on Auckland's North Shore has admitted downloading child porn off the internet.

30-year-old Stefan Schmid was arrested at the commune, north of Auckland, last year where he had downloaded the pictures onto a computer to which children had access. He was sentenced to seven month's periodic detention and ordered to pay $500 in costs on 37 charges relating to the child porn.

But the sentencing is being criticised as too lenient by a group pushing to have Centrepoint closed down.

Barri Leslie, an anti-Centrepoint member, says Schmid grew up on the commune and it is tragic to now see the second generation offending.

Schmid joins a list of people living at Centrepoint, including its leader Bert Potter, who have been convicted of sex charges in the past decade.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>