April 30, 2009

Former teacher and election candidate jailed for child porn

By Anne Clarkson

A 61-year-old former teacher and parliamentary hopeful was jailed for two years six months on 24 charges relating to child pornography, at his sentencing in the Christchurch District Court today.

Malcolm Albert Spark was found guilty by a jury after a three-day trial on 10 charges of making an objectionable publication, and 14 charges of knowingly possessing an objectionable publication.

He had stood unsuccessfully in the Waimakariri electorate as an ACT NZ candidate in 1999.

Crown prosecutor Claire Boshier said the offending in a chat room happened over five years and Spark had a large amount of material on his computer.

He had photos of young girls, and promoted the exploitation of children, even if it was by words and not pictures.

She said he had a diminished narcissistic personality disorder and paedophilia, with no capacity to understand his wrongdoing, and no remorse, which made him likely to re-offend.

Defence counsel Sonia Vidal said he had only just read a victim impact report from an eleven-year-old and her mother and he felt sorry for them.

She said it was not established from the files in the computer that activities took place, only that they had been described, so it was less serious.

He did not seek electronic monitoring or a sentence of that nature, she said.

There was no commerciality, just private thoughts and texts between people in a chat room.

Spark had been a responsible and active member of his community and had since lost his wife of 30 years.

Judge David Saunders said that a young girl?s mother took over the chat room sessions her daughter was having with Spark, and contacted the Department of Internal Affairs.

When they searched his computer they found the objectionable material, and found he had sent girls as young as nine photos of his erect penis.

The pre-sentence report said that he believed he was not harming anyone, and that society had got things wrong.

Judge Saunders said the making of the documents was planned, prolonged and Spark was meticulous in his note-taking.

He said there was a link between obsession and potential for harm. It was fantasy talk, and Spark had lost sight of reality with the highly objectionable material.

The judge noted that Spark was intending to appeal his convictions, and sentenced him to two years six months for the 10 counts of making the objectionable publication and a concurrent sentence of one year for the 14 counts of possession of the publications.

He strongly urged the parole board to assess risk, and to give Spark psychological assistance. He was concerned about Spark?s access to computers in the future.