Supervision and community work for offender

4 July 2014

A man, caught twice with child sexual abuse material, was sentenced to 18 months intensive supervision and 100 hours community work in the Christchurch District Court yesterday.

Andrew Jonathan Johnson, 44, formerly of Palmerston North, appeared for sentence after pleading guilty to four charges of possessing objectionable publications.

An Internal Affairs inspector and police separately caught Johnson on Internet file sharing sites over a fortnight in October 2012. Computer equipment seized from his Palmerston North home contained encrypted movies and images of underage girls in explicit sexual poses and acts.

Internal Affairs told the court that continuing damage is done when offenders copy and view images of victims being sexually abused.

Judge Tony Couch ordered Johnson to undergo a WellStop programme and not to access the Internet unless for “legitimate employment purposes”. He also ordered the destruction of the objectionable images

Notes:

We strongly encourage the use of the phrase “online child sex abuse” and not “child or kiddie pornography” because the word pornography:

• downplays child sexual abuse. Most of the public is unaware of the seriousness of this type of offending which includes images of oral, vaginal and anal sex, sometimes bondage, bestiality and sexual torture.
• indicates legitimacy and compliance on victim’s part, suggesting legality on abuser’s part. These are criminal acts and each act is a crime scene.
• Conjures up images of children posing in ‘provocative’ positions, rather than capturing horrific abuse and suffering. Victims suffer physical and emotional abuse with the impact often staying with them for life.