Internet giant Google helped pinpoint a Dunedin man accused of distributing objectionable material involving the abuse of children and animals.
Dunedin storeman Stephen Brett Scully (54) was remanded in custody after appearing in the Dunedin District Court yesterday on a raft of charges.
Of the 38 charges, eight were for distributing objectionable material, seven for supplying objectionable material (both charges with a 10-year maximum imprisonment) and 23 of possessing objectionable material.
His offending was detected after Google notified the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), in the United States, that objectionable images were uploaded to a website it controlled.
On February 8 last year, NCMEC notified New Zealand's Internal Affairs and Google identified the defendant as the person likely to have uploaded the objectionable material.
Scully told police he had uploaded about 100 objectionable images, involving the sexual exploitation of children, to various internet sharing sites such as Picasa.
He denied telling people of the location of the uploaded images, but conceded the images would be viewed by others, the police summary of facts said.
On June 17 last year, police executed a search warrant at his Dunedin address and seized a computer and hard drive.
An analysis of the computer hard drive revealed just days earlier he had sent to another person 30 objectionable images, including images of children performing sex acts on animals, or with men.
Scully admitted sending the images via Skype.
That same analysis showed a flash drive, with hundreds of objectionable images involving children, was used on his computer between April 21 and June 17 last year.
Scully had labelled some of these images with the Christian names of a relative and two of his previous sexual victims, offending which resulted in a 2004 conviction.
He told police the sexual images were not of those people, but were of people not known to him. He said he sourced those images from the internet and labelled them with those names.
The images on the flash drive depicted serious sexual offending.
Scully said he destroyed the flash drive after police executed the June search warrant.
On May 14 this year, police executed another search warrant at his address, locating a flash drive hidden in a gumboot by the front door.
That flash drive revealed more images of serious sexual offending against children.
Scully said he had downloaded the images from the internet on to the flash drive to replace another flash drive he had disposed of.
Scully is to be appear for sentencing on February 13.
