MEDIA RELEASE
29 July 2008

Child Porn Punishments Are Insult to Victims and Community

Family First NZ is slamming two recent decisions of the courts regarding the possession of child porn images, labeling them offensive, pathetic, and spineless.

A Palmerston North man was convicted for possession of 2000 pornographic images and movies of child porn, including images of adults sexually abusing babies, yet received a punishment of only eight months home detention.

And a Masterton man who imported and exported disturbing graphic sexual images of very young boys for five years received a pathetic six months home detention. But most offensive is the fact that he is serving his home detention next door to a children’s playgroup.

“This is like putting a person battling with overeating next door to the local bakery.”

“The rights of the victims, many of them children, to see justice are being trod on,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “Ironically the judge in one of the cases said that a message needs to be sent that this offending can never be acceptable in our community. They have failed to meet their own benchmark.”

“Their decisions are spineless and send the completely wrong message. And they are perpetuating the problem by allowing offenders to be placed where the community, children, and even the offenders themselves, are put further at risk.”

“Each one of these images represents the violation and degradation of our most vulnerable – the ultimate in child abuse from which these children may take a lifetime to recover. Yet the average effect of the punishment for each image is staying home for less than three hours.”

“We will never tackle the gross problem of child pornography while offenders are slapped with a ‘wet bus ticket’by a spineless judiciary,” says Mr McCoskrie.

ENDS

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