Protecting children - The wrong message

WHEN a court, on behalf of society, imposes a sentence on someone convicted of a crime several objectives are in play. One is to remove a threat from society; another is to punish the individual and a third is to warn others of the consequences of the behaviour that led to the conviction. It is hard to see how these needs were served in the David Ivers case.

Ivers was convicted of having over 15,000 images of child pornography. Some involved children no older than toddlers. Others showed children between one and six subjected to physical abuse and oral sex.

Judge Patrick J Moran said they provoked a feeling “approaching horror” in him yet he felt a four-year suspended sentence appropriate.

Last year, in a case where a man was convicted of making and having child pornography and using a child for sexual exploitation he imposed a one-year jail term.

These sentences do not reflect the level of protection society expects our courts to afford children so terribly and violently abused no matter where they are.

This sentence sends out the wrong message.