This week, the 65-year-old appeared in the Hamilton District Court for sentencing on 13 representative charges of unlawful possession of objectionable publications after the search in September last year.
Moynaham said in one report, provided to the court, he hadn’t collected the images for sexual gratification, yet in another said he’d tried to rationalise it initially by appreciating their “aesthetic”.
While it was determined Moynaham wouldn’t go to jail, Judge Philip Crayton was tasked with deciding whether to put him on the child sex offender register.
The court heard Moynaham was identified in May 2024 by the DIA as sharing child exploitation images on a file-sharing network.
A search was carried out at his home and 12 different electronic devices were found.
There were 4691 images discovered on a laptop and 552 on a cellphone.
He handed over passwords to the devices but declined to comment to investigators.
‘Somewhat of a loner’
At his sentencing, Crown prosecutor Raewyn Greenhalgh said Moynaham posed a risk to the community and therefore should be put on the child sex offender register.
Greenhalgh said, in referring to letters provided in support of Moynaham, that he was “described as somewhat of a loner, and this offending would basically have had to have happened in isolation without other people knowing about it”.
The judge agreed but said the register was about the risk or danger posed to children.
He added a key mitigating factor was that Moynaham had been engaging in rehabilitation over the past nine months.
“Yes, but when looking at the risk he poses, the defendant has denied any interest or intent or sexual pre-occupation, so the question is, for what other purpose are these objectionable publications downloaded or possessed?” Greenhalgh replied.
“With the defendant denying that this exists, it effectively puts him in a position where he is, despite expressing his remorse and all the other things, essentially denying one of the underlying reasons why this type of offending occurs.”
‘This was not a random acquisition’
Judge Crayton noted 50% of the images fell within the most serious categories.
“This was objectionable publications reflecting very young children,” he said.
“This was a very large amount of objectionable images. The harm caused is obvious, and you accept that.”
The judge took into account Moynaham’s otherwise clean criminal history.
But he struggled with Moynaham’s suggestion that he didn’t have the images for any sexual gratification.
“You say you viewed the publications with no interest or intent of sexual preoccupation.
“It is difficult, as Ms Greenhalgh identifies, to see that there is not an underlying sexual interest which motivates the acquisition of so many images of this type.
“This is not some random acquisition of objectionable images. They follow a pattern; the descriptions and the titles identify the content.”
However, Moynaham had engaged with a clinician and knew he had to proactively manage the drivers of his offending.
By a “finely balanced margin”, the judge declined to put Moynaham on the register.
He sentenced Moynaham to seven months and one week of home detention with 11 months of post-release conditions.
Moynaham previously paid an unidentified sum to Victim Support as a form of reparation, which the judge said was a “tangible acknowledgment of harm to the victims”.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.