{"id":440730,"date":"2026-05-22T23:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/440730\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T23:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:20:09","slug":"whangarei-man-malcolm-granich-denies-knowing-child-sex-abuse-files-were-on-sd-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/440730\/","title":{"rendered":"Whang\u0101rei man Malcolm Granich denies knowing child sex abuse files were on SD card"},"content":{"rendered":"

Investigators gave evidence that the illicit files were all uploaded to the card on the same day, a detail central to both sides of the case.<\/p>\n

Police were originally alerted to objectionable images being shared on websites from a Wi-Fi address associated with Granich\u2019s property in Maungatapere, Whang\u0101rei<\/a>, in early 2021.<\/p>\n

Detective Richard Soper brought Granich into the police station for questioning and asked him who had access to his phone in 2018.<\/p>\n

Granich said he had his phone, but other people used the Wi-Fi address, including his brother-in-law, Ezekial Lowe.<\/p>\n

Granich said he had not used chatrooms or dating sites since 2014 but had previously uploaded \u201cd*** pics\u201d to women he was talking to on Zeuss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was young and dumb and when you get older, you realise it\u2019s not cool,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Soper questioned him about an image of a 4-year-old girl performing a sexual act that was uploaded onto live streaming site Kick in 2018. It was allegedly linked to his email address.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you upload this?\u201d Soper asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Granich responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid this email belong to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. I\u2019ve still got it technically but I never had a kick account with that email,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Soper told the court Granich believed it was Lowe, whom he had described as a \u201cdropkick\u201d, who had put the images onto Kick.<\/p>\n

The interview finished, however Soper was not happy with his answers and obtained a search warrant.<\/p>\n

When police arrived at Granich\u2019s address in December 2021<\/a> he had an Oppo cellphone in his hand.<\/p>\n

That cellphone and several other devices were uplifted from Granich\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

The phones were searched and an SD card was located in the Oppo phone, which held 20 pornographic images, 17 which were objectionable.<\/p>\n

Among the recordings were videos, screenshots and images of children, as young as 4 years old, in sexual contact with adults.<\/p>\n

One of the videos was 42 seconds long.<\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice were originally tipped off to images being uploaded to websites from an email address associated to Granich. Photo \/ 123rf<\/p>\n

Both the Crown and defence accept the images are objectionable, however, it is the defence case Granich was not aware they were there.<\/p>\n

Among the files were also selfies of Granich posing or performing sexual acts with himself.<\/p>\n

He was taken in for questioning again and was asked what kind of material he had on his devices.<\/p>\n

\u2018Pretty average\u2019<\/p>\n

In that interview, he again pointed to his brother-in-law, Lowe. <\/p>\n

\u201cZeek [Ezekial] lived at the address and had a book with passcodes and information in it,\u201d Granich claimed.<\/p>\n

Granich said he had all types of porn on there.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople jacking off on chicks, pretty average,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Soper asked what age the people were on his images.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty-plus. Why are you looking at me like that?\u201d Granich asked Soper before requesting a lawyer, which terminated the interview.<\/p>\n

\"JudgeJudge Peter Davey has reserved his decision. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

Granich was charged in 2022.<\/p>\n

However, it has taken more than four years to reach a judge-alone trial following multiple pre-trials and application hearings.<\/p>\n

At the recent judge-alone trial<\/a>, Soper and police digital forensic analyst Jung Lee gave evidence about the SD card.<\/p>\n

Lee said around 200 files had been bulk-uploaded on to the SD card with a creation date of April 14, 2021.<\/p>\n

He said sometime between April and the seizure of the phone, the files had been deleted.<\/p>\n

One of the files had a screenshot of a video which showed the volume bar matching the version of Oppo phone in Granich\u2019s possession.<\/p>\n

However, Jung said there was no way to determine it was this exact Oppo phone that had taken the screenshot.<\/p>\n

\u2018No way of knowing\u2019<\/p>\n

Lee also confirmed there was no metadata from the phones showing any search history for the videos or media player data.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way for us to know which devices used the SD card?\u201d defence lawyer Mathew Ridgley asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Lee responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s no way of knowing when the SD card was inserted into the Oppo?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCorrect,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

Lee said the data was unable to show if the SD card had played the videos and conceded, the files could have been uploaded on to the card before it was inserted into the phone.<\/p>\n

Lee also confirmed there was no way to know where the data was uploaded from.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe images were on an SD card which had been on several phones. Photo \/ 123RF<\/p>\n

In closings, Danette Cole said the Crown did not have to prove the files were viewed but that Granich had knowledge of the files therefore had control over them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe SD card contained information of him on there, his business pages etc there was also no evidence of anyone who had or stored items on the SD card,\u201d Cole submitted.<\/p>\n

Cole also said the images of Granich masturbating and in other sexual acts had been uploaded on to the card on April 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say he had no possession after April 14, that is not true,\u201d Cole said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was also a QR card created on May 5, 2021, that shows he has ongoing possession of the SD card.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ridgley said the Crown\u2019s case was circumstantial and the forensic analysis showed the SD card had been moved across multiple phones and pointed to a selfie of his wife taken in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlainly other people had access to storage,\u201d Ridgley submitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis SD card was in other phones prior to being in the Oppo phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Huawei, a Samsung at some point then made its way into the Oppo phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only time he accepts it was in there was on December 10, 2021, when the phone was seized. There is no other evidence suggesting it was in the Oppo phone any earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ridgley said Granich accepts he was in custody of the SD card but that was not the point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t the point is we don\u2019t know the source of the device that took that photo?\u201d Ridgley asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no reliable evidence to suggest or support that Mr Granich engaged in this material whatsoever and he was responsible for taking the screenshots.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Crown case falls short of establishing the charges beyond reasonable doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Davey has reserved his decision until June.<\/p>\n

Shannon Pitman is a Whang\u0101rei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ng\u0101puhi\/ Ng\u0101ti P\u016bkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Investigators gave evidence that the illicit files were all uploaded to the card on the same day, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1903,1763,10635,2511,28428,1968,6286,33352,225018,56057,57638,5158,111,43,139,69,90,6289,37946,7680,17703,544,1961,96,1455,3608,1869],"class_list":["post-440730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-abuse","tag-article","tag-card","tag-child","tag-denies","tag-discusses","tag-exploitation","tag-files","tag-granich","tag-knowing","tag-malcolm","tag-man","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-readers","tag-sd","tag-sex","tag-sexual","tag-some","tag-this","tag-upsetting","tag-warning","tag-were","tag-whangrei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}