Raumati Hanning became the target of police’s "Operation Vandem" in April last year when a 16-year-old girl complained she had been deceived into sharing footage of her feet.
When officers raided Hanning’s Dunedin home in August they discovered the girl was just one of about 100 victims — aged between 7 and 16 — from around the world who had been ensnared by the defendant’s predatory advances.
"You were cunning, you were deliberate and you were persistent," Judge Emma Smith said.
Analysis of the man’s cellphone showed he began creating fictitious accounts on social media sites Instagram, YouTube and TikTok in January 2023.
Hanning had at least five fake accounts, portraying himself as an innocent 12-year-old, under the names "Lilly", "Lucy", "Chris", "Indiana" or "Indywindywooooo".
The court heard he would initiate his advances by praising the victims’ good looks before persuading them to supply videos of their feet.
It was for ballet, gymnastics or school assignments, Hanning told them.
And if they needed more of a push, Hanning would claim he had recently lost his mother to cancer, that he was at risk of being excluded from school and desperately needed the videos to get his life "back on track".
If he got a top grade in the supposed project, he would give the victims a monetary reward or new shoes, he promised.
Some of what Hanning made the girls do is too explicit for publication but he would often direct them to perform acts on cylindrical objects using their feet.
"The associated instructions often caused the angle of filming to be such that the child recorded directly into their crotch," a summary of facts said.
When the victims became suspicious as to his motives or identity, the defendant threatened to make their previous videos public or share them with their parents or school.
And Hanning would specifically target friends of other victims to strengthen the potential for blackmail.
The defendant was not satisfied with his own accumulated stash of 400 videos, though.
The court heard how he would use his cache to trade with other like-minded individuals online.
Police found a total of 46,818 images and 1610 videos in Hanning’s possession and in an online file-storage account were a further 3231 files, obtained over the preceding three years.
A "conservative" view identified 79 which legally constituted child exploitation material — more than half of which fell into the most serious category and featured children as young as 3 being violated.
Hanning made frank admissions when interviewed by police and put it down to his foot fetish.
However, he claimed he had no sexual interest in children and had only used them because they were more likely to be duped by his ruse.
Hanning said he was "horrified" by his own actions and it was a relief to finally be caught by police.
Judge Smith acknowledged the man’s extreme remorse and accepted aspects of his background had contributed to his criminality.
But that had to be measured against the fact Hanning had introduced hundreds of videos that were now being shared globally on a sexual black market, she said.
One of the victims said in a statement her kindness had been exploited.
"I genuinely felt like I was helping a young girl in need," she said.
"I feel violated, embarrassed and targeted."
