Offender DatabasesViolent and Sexual Offender Databases |
Victims MemorialA memorial to those murdered in NZ in the last twenty years
Arabic language summary | 
Chinese language summary | 
Korean language summary 0900 SAFE NZ (7233 69)
EDUCATE . ADVOCATE . SUPPORT
| SITEMAP(3)Where to find everything here | FAQFrequently Asked Questions | New!New on this site lately |
escalating violence in our community
Become a member of the
Sensible Sentencing Trust
Offender Databases
Andrew Robinson
.
Indecent assault (x2) of an 8 year old Timaru girl in 2007
Also possession of 250,000 images of child sex abuse, including some of his own doing.
.
.
none known
Born 1975
At large
Sentenced to four years in July 2008
Background
Scoop story here
From Timaru Herald story 10th July 2008
A Pareora man's hoarding of 250,000 child sex abuse images was yesterday described as one of the worst cases New Zealand has seen.
Andrew James Robinson 33, a freezing worker, was sentenced in the Timaru District Court to four years' imprisonment on two charges of indecently assaulting an eight-year-old girl, four charges of making and 40 charges of possessing objectionable material. Judge Stephen Erber said Robinson had lifted the level of offending above other cases seen in New Zealand by morphing his face into the images.
"This is as depraved as is possible to imagine."
Robinson was detected after the FBI's San Francisco office discovered two people with a New Zealand-registered Internet service provider downloading images from an Internet on-line message board called "Ranchi". The FBI tip-off led to censorship inspectors seizing computer equipment from Robinson's home. They discovered 250,000 obscene images showing young girls and newborn babies being sexually abused by adult men.
After three months, the investigators found images of the defendant doing an indecent act on an eight-year-old girl. They also discovered altered images in which Robinson's face and the girl's face had been superimposed into the child sexual abuse images. Detective Greg Harrison of the Timaru police said that during a camping trip, Robinson had sat the girl on his lap and taken photos of her touching his penis. In a second incident he sat the girl on his lap and took photos of him indecently touching her.
Mr Harrison said Robinson's offending was bold as it occurred openly at the camp site. The girl's parents were shocked to learn of the offending. She displayed no symptoms of being abused but her parents had taken her to counselling. In a victim impact report, the victim's father said he felt as if he had let his daughter down. "That's not the case, all he did was trust you," Judge Erber told Robinson. "You turned the lives of this family upside down."
Judge Erber accepted that the first incident could have been spontaneous but the next day Robinson went looking. He rejected the claim that Robinson offended against the girl to enhance his collection of images and not for sexual gratification. Judge Erber said the case was a prime example of the link between child pornography and physically abusing children.
Crown counsel Andrew McRae said Robinson had breached the trust of his young victim's parents, who had trusted him with the care of their child while on a camping holiday. "His offending escalated in seriousness in that he graduated from mere possession of images to the production of photographs while offending against a child." Defence counsel Norm Scott said Robinson was relieved to be apprehended because he realised he needed help to beat his addiction.
He said Robinson was a socially isolated person who used to come home from work and sit on his computer. Robinson first got a computer to play computer games, and he then discovered adult pornography on the Internet which led to child pornography. Robinson admitted he was addicted to child pornography and had been accessing images from the Internet for over 10 years. He said he was remorseful for his offending and willing to undertake counselling.
Judge Erber said the making of such images degraded and corrupted children and was likely to incline people to commit abuse against children. He said there were no mitigating factors about the offending but acknowledged that Robinson did not share his images or use them for commercial gain. Parliament had increased the maximum penalty for possession of objectionable material to five years and making objectionable material to 10 years. The judge said it was clear that Parliament took a strong stand on possessing and making objectionable images and expected the court to do the same. An order was made to confiscate Robinson's computer.
From Christchurch Press story 9th July 2008
An FBI tipoff led New Zealand censorship inspectors to the home of a South Canterbury man who had collected 250,000 images of child sex abuse, including some of his own doing. Some of the images included newborn babies.
The investigation found Andrew James Robinson, a 33-year-old freezing worker of Pareora, 14km south of Timaru, had also abused a young girl himself and filmed the acts. Robinson was sentenced to four years jail today in Timaru District Court, in a case Judge Stephen Erber said was unprecedented.
Robinson admitted two charges of sexual conduct with an 8-year-old girl, four charges of making objectionable publications, and 40 charges of possessing objectionable material. Crown counsel Andrew McRae said there were no mitigating factors in the offending. Robinson had breached the trust of his young victim's parents who had trusted him with the care of their child while on a camping holiday.
"His offending escalated in seriousness in that he graduated from mere possession of images to the production of photographs while offending against a child," Mr McRae said. The FBI had provided information which led to censorship inspectors seizing computer equipment from Robinson's home.
They discovered some 250,000 obscene images showing young girls and newborn babies being sexually abused by adult men. Internal Affairs deputy secretary Keith Manch praised the censorship inspectors' work in revealing Robinson's physical offending.
"They suspected from the way he had doctored images that he was a physical sex offender and it was only after they had trawled through most of the 250,000 images that they found two pictures of a man doing an indecent act on a young girl in what appeared to be a New Zealand setting," he said. "It was only the dedicated work and expertise of this team which revealed the identity of the girl and enabled the police to prosecute Robinson for the physical offending.
"It is unusual for a local victim to be uncovered during the team's monitoring of the internet but this case shows we are not immune from such abuse. It also shows that paedophiles are active on the internet." Earlier today in Christchurch, John Schaper, 28, a former computer systems administrator, was jailed for two years and three months on 28 charges of possessing child sex abuse pictures.
