March 18, 2009

Former teacher convicted for having child sex images

A 60-year-old former teacher from Kaiapoi is in custody awaiting sentence after being convicted by a jury on 24 child pornography charges.

Malcolm Albert Spark was remanded in custody after the jury returned its guilty verdicts at the end of a three-day trial in the Christchurch District Court today.

Judge David Saunders remanded Spark in custody for a probation report and sentence on April 30.

It was the first trial of its kind in the South Island prosecuted by the Department of Internal Affairs.

Claire Boshier was the prosecutor, and Sonia Vidal of Queenstown appeared as Spark?s defence counsel.

The jury convicted him on all the charges: 10 counts of making an objectionable publication and 14 counts of knowingly possessing an objectionable publication.

The publications related to child sexual exploitation.

The department?s case was that Spark had taken part in on-line chats with girls aged from nine to 15 in 2005, which led to him obtaining images which he put with a summary of what he had learned about the girls during the chats.

Spark was a teacher, and then a courier van driver, and is now unemployed.

Spark has had name suppression as the case proceeded, but the interim order was lifted once the jury returned its verdicts today.