The man appeared for sentence in the Hamilton District Court on Wednesday, when he was granted permanent name suppression, purely to protect his child, and sent to jail.
He had earlier admitted 12 charges, including two of doing an indecent act on a child, knowingly making an objectionable publication, distributing that publication, and three representative charges of possessing objectionable publications.
“You were supposed to care and protect her,” Judge Kim Saunders told him as she sent him to prison.
“Instead, you abused her.”
‘It’s devastating’
The victim’s grandmother, aged in her 70s, has now become the girl’s fulltime caregiver.
In her victim impact statement, she said the victim was a “bright and bubbly girl who has had to experience something no child should have to endure”.
The victim had days where she displayed “concerning” behaviour and she now worried about the long-term impact the abuse would have on her.
“I sincerely hope she can recover without carrying the burden of what has been done to her.
“It’s devastating to know, that someone who should have protected [victim] has instead caused her such harm.”
47 videos, 282 images
The abuse began in August last year when the man set up a recording device in his bedroom.
He took off his daughter’s pants and underwear and posed her on his bed.
He then filmed himself offending against her as the victim protested.
Despite her protestations, he videoed himself abusing her again a week later.
He then took eight screen shots, which revealed the victim’s genitalia and bottom.
The man then used his Gmail account to email the eight screen shots to a person in the United States in which he offered to take requests “no matter how weird”.
From one video, he made three separate, shorter videos; two that were 11 seconds long, and another, 23 seconds.
The next day, the New Zealand Online Child Exploitation Team received information from a sheriff’s office in Colorado about the man’s imagery being sent to a suspect there.
A forensic examination of his cellphone found 282 images, and 47 objectionable videos.
Six of the videos and 182 images involved his daughter, the rest were downloaded or sent directly to him from others.
Thirty-three images and 31 videos were put into the most serious category, 1A, and included the sexual violation of a baby that was still in hospital with its name tag on its wrist.
There were 12 videos and 250 images in the second most serious category, where his daughter’s imagery sat.
There were also two images and five bestiality-related videos, involving a woman and animals.
‘It was a terrible misunderstanding’
Crown prosecutor James Lewis said the offending involved a high degree of premeditation and breach of trust on a vulnerable victim, in circumstances where he was her sole caregiver.
While the defendant should get a full guilty plea discount, he lacked insight into what he’d done.
When asked what drove his offending, he told a report writer; “I am not sure”.
“That deviant streak in me that went too far down the rabbit hole and it was a terrible misunderstanding,” the man said.
“I have done wrong and I want to make it right, and will do anything I can to help.”
The man also “politely declined” to comment on the driver of his offending, refusing to confirm whether it was sexually motivated or by monetary gain, Lewis said.
‘He wants to put things right’
The man’s counsel, Tom Sutcliffe, said there wasn’t much difference between the submissions of the Crown and his own. However, he disputed that his client had a lack of insight into what he’d done.
“I can’t imagine there’s anybody who does not commit offending of this nature that doesn’t have some degree of insight, otherwise they wouldn’t be committing the offending.
“But that shouldn’t be taken as a broad-brush approach to then decline what would otherwise be an appropriate discount.”
He said his client was co-operative with police and pleaded guilty almost immediately.
“As he put it, he has gone down a rabbit hole and there was a deviant streak that took him there, he can’t explain why he did what he did.
“He’s a man who is wanting to put things right, and he’s clearly open to rehabilitation.”
‘You were supposed to protect her, but you abused her’
Judge Saunders said it surely went without saying that children were “the most innocent vulnerable among us”.
“And I cannot think of any more vulnerable victim than your 5-year-old daughter.
“The harm to her as she matures cannot be calculated and one can only hope that she gets the support that she needs so that your offending against does not define her life.
“And of course society abhors the exploitation of children in that way.”
What she also found “troubling” was the fact the man was willing to make more material involving his child.
She took an overall starting point of five-and-a-half years before allowing a 25% discount for his guilty pleas, and a further 5% for his prospects of rehabilitation.
Judge Saunders jailed him for three years and 10 months and granted him permanent name suppression.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.