Baby next door a threat to sentence
A man caught with child exploitation images on his laptop wants to serve his sentence at a retirement village where his neighbour cares for an infant.
The man, who cannot be named, has been looking for a place to serve an electronically monitored sentence after he admitted three charges of possessing objectionable publications last April.
The 77-year-old took his laptop and external hard drive to a repair shop in Blenheim in 2017, where a man working on the laptop discovered four disturbing videos.
The videos were from ‘‘one of the worst’’ child abuse series on the internet and involved an infant girl, a police summary of facts said.
Police also found more than 100 videos and photographs of ‘‘dehumanising’’ sexual content involving young girls.
The man’s sentencing was delayed several times in the hopes of finding a rental property where he could serve a sentence. He appeared again at the Blenheim District Court on Monday.
His lawyer Rob Harrison said he had found a unit at a retirement village willing to take the man.
However, probation opposed the address as the woman in the next door unit was caring for her infant granddaughter.
Judge Tony Zohrab said he would not take the risk of something happening to the infant.
‘‘I’m going to look pretty foolish if I sentence him and he does something, he’s got a fetish for young girls and there’s one living next door. I’m not going to do it.’’
Probation had assessed the man as ‘‘not being completely forthcoming’’ about his interest in young girls, Judge Zohrab said.
Harrison said he was under the impression the infant only visited its grandmother ‘‘from time to time’’.
Judge Zohrab said he appreciated Harrison had gone to great lengths to arrange the unit, and the permanent address of the infant should be clarified before sentencing.
He remanded the man on bail to a nominal date of February 15 to give Harrison time to find out.
If the infant’s living situation could be clarified before then, the man could be sentenced earlier.