Auckland, New Zealand. Police traced the dark web user “Kiwipedo” to a workplace in the city in 2015. Photo: Shutterstock
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https://scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3202364/new-zealand-man-who-tried-buy-girl-3-sex-gets-just-3-years-prison Australasia
New Zealand man who tried to buy girl, 3, for sex gets just 3 years in prison
- Aaron Joseph Hutton, known on the dark web as ‘Kiwipedo’, was caught by police offering US$9,500 in cash or in bitcoin for a child aged under 7
- His intended victim was to be a 3-year-old girl, the court heard during his original sentencing hearing. ‘She was to become a sex slave’, a judge said
Aaron Joseph Hutton was known on the dark web as “Kiwipedo”, prosecutors said. Photo: The New Zealand Herald
A New Zealand man who tried to buy a three-year-old girl online for sex was resentenced on Wednesday to just over three years in prison.
Known on the dark web as “Kiwipedo”, Aaron Joseph Hutton was initially sentenced to five years in prison in January last year. But that term was overturned the following July after a High Court justice found the previous sentencing hearing was improperly conducted.
Hutton appeared for another sentencing on Wednesday before Judge David Sharp in the Auckland District Court after being convicted of possessing objectionable material and dealing with people under 18 for sex.
His lawyer had submitted that Hutton was remorseful, with a pre-sentence report showing that he had suffered protracted sexual abuse at the hands of an older cousin and he had substance abuse issues.
But Judge Sharp said the charge of dealing with people under 18 for sex that amounted to attempting to procure an infant online was depraved and there were no mitigating features.
“These are significant aggravating aspects,” he said. “The offending has nothing to it which could be said to be mitigating.”
Because Hutton had been unsuccessful in his attempt to procure a child, the maximum sentence that could be imposed was seven years, Judge Sharp said.
He was ultimately sentenced to three and two months in prison, with an additional two years to be served concurrently for the child abuse images.
Sentence reductions were applied for a late plea, rehabilitative work Hutton had undertaken including a drug and alcohol course, and a further two-month discount for his time spent on electronically monitored bail and the availability of restorative justice.
Police first started tracking a person with the username “Kiwipedo” in 2014, thanks to an undercover operation on the dark web conducted by Australian law enforcement.
The computer was traced to an Auckland workplace in 2015, and both the workplace and Hutton’s home were searched by New Zealand authorities.
The Department of Internal Affairs was alerted, and undercover officers from New Zealand then contacted him on the dark web.
Your intended victim was three … She was to become a sex slave
Not realising he was speaking to undercover law enforcement officers in Australia, Kiwipedo described notorious Austrian paedophile Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a basement for 24 years and repeatedly raped her, as a “hero”, authorities alleged.
It was with New Zealand officers that he started asking about international child trafficking and said he would pay up to NZ$15,000 (US$9,500) in cash or in bitcoin for a child under 7.
Hutton initially stood trial for two charges of attempting to deal with a young person for sexual exploitation, one charge of attempted indecent act on a child and 15 charges of possession of objectionable publications.
As part of his plea agreement, Hutton admitted that from January to February 2015 he tried to enter a deal involving the sexual exploitation of a girl under the age of 7. He also pleaded guilty to one representative charge of possession of 417 objectionable images of children being sexually abused.
Other charges were withdrawn, including allegations from April 2015 involving another fictitious child.
During the original sentencing hearing, Auckland District Court Judge Allan Roberts characterised as “nonsense” the suggestion that Hutton only aimed to waste police time and was never going to go through with child sex trafficking.
“Your intended victim was three,” the judge said. “She was to become a sex slave.”