An Upper Hutt man who admitted to possessing more than 45,000 images and videos depicting the sexual exploitation and abuse of children has been sentenced to one year of home detention.
Ronald Leonard Ford, 79, said in an interview after being arrested that his offending was “just amusement” and he thought viewing the sexual exploitation and abuse of children was “fairly innocuous”.
Ford’s offending was discovered after he uploaded child sexual exploitation and abuse images to a visual search engine, hoping to seek out similar illegal material.
Authorities searched his home on August 1, 2023, and seized nine USB drives and three computer hard drives.
A forensic analysis of the devices uncovered more than 45,000 child sexual exploitation images and videos.
The victims included in the material ranged from infants to 15-year-olds.
“Many of the images included innocent children being subjected to cruel and demeaning sexual abuse, including being bound and gagged,” the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) said.
Ford was sentenced to 12 months home detention at the Hutt Valley District Court, ordered to register as a child sex offender, and for all electronic devices used in the offending to be destroyed.
Tim Houston, manager of the digital child exploitation team at the DIA, said Ford’s offending was “not innocuous at all”.
“Investigations that result in holding offenders accountable help protect and safeguard the most vulnerable in our society from harm.
“For those who may be at risk of committing sexual online offences, I urge you for yourself, those around you and the victims, please immediately seek the confidential help that is available.
“Anyone who distributes, makes, or possesses this despicable illegal material will be fully held to account in the court of law, it’ll just be a matter of time until you are caught.”
