Man who tried to buy child for sex jailed for three years

Judge David Sharp

said the lead offending was depraved and there were no mitigating

features.

A man who tried to buy a child online for sex has received just over three years jail at a resentencing yesterday.

Known on the dark web as “Kiwipedo”, Aaron Joseph Hutton was sent to jail last January for trying to buy a young girl for sex on the dark web, spending months in a chat room to that end.

His intended victim was three years old and Hutton intended to use her as a sex slave, a Judge said earlier.

Hutton has claimed he intended only to “troll” authorities and was in possession of hundreds of child abuse images by accident.

His five-year term was tossed out in July 2021 after High Court Justice Timothy Brewer found the previous sentencing hearing was improperly conducted.

Hutton appeared for another sentencing yesterday before Judge David Sharp in the Auckland District Court after convictions for possessing objectionable material and dealing with people under 18 for sex.

Judge Sharp said a pre-sentence report showed Hutton had suffered protracted abuse and had substance abuse issues.

However, the Judge said the lead offending, the charge of dealing with people under 18 for sex that amounted to attempting to procure an infant online, was depraved and there were no mitigating features.

“These are significant aggravating aspects,” Judge Sharp said.

Because the lead charge amounted to an unsuccessful attempt, the maximum sentence that could be imposed was seven years, Judge Sharp said.

His lawyer sought a starting point of two-and-half years but the Judge said that was insufficient, instead adopting three-and-half years.

That was increased to four years taking into account Hutton’s possession of child abuse material.

Judge Sharp reduced the sentence by four months to take into account a late plea, with the same reduction for the rehabilitative work he had undertaken including drug and alcohol course.

He received two years for the child abuse images, to be served concurrently.

Justice Brewer earlier determined that the district court judge who oversaw the sentencing should have ordered a disputed facts hearing after realising the Crown and the defence disagreed over the summary of facts presented to the court.

Police first started tracking a person with the username “Kiwipedo” in 2014, thanks to an undercover operation on the dark web conducted by Australian law enforcement.

The computer was traced to an Auckland workplace in 2015, and both the workplace and his home were searched by New Zealand authorities. Undercover officers then contacted him on the dark web where he said he would pay up to $15,000 for a child under seven years old.

Hutton initially stood trial for two charges of attempting to deal with a young person for sexual exploitation, one charge of attempted indecent act on a child and 15 charges of possession of objectionable publications.

As part of his plea agreement, Hutton admitted that from January to February 2015 he tried to enter a deal involving the sexual exploitation of a girl under the age of 7. He also pleaded guilty to one representative charge of possession of 417 objectionable images of children being sexually abused.

During the original hearing, Judge Allan Roberts said the suggestion Hutton was only wasting police time and was never going to proceed with child sex trafficking was “nonsense”.