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Offender Databases Neville Henderson

Neville Robert Henderson

Alias

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Offences

Sexual violation (x3) and doing an indecent act (x2) on a 14 year old Timaru girl from August 2005 to January 2006
Also viewing and trading 72 objectionable images

Victims

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Offender Affiliations

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Gang affiliations

none known

Age

Born 1957

Current Location

At large in Waikiwi, Invercargill

Parole/Release Dates

Sentenced to four years in December 2006
Reduced by six months on appeal in November 2007
Sentenced to a further six months in April 2008
Released December 2008

Background
From the Timaru Herald 10 April 2008
A man whose computer was found to contain 72 objectionable images and videos was yesterday sentenced in the Timaru District Court to six months' imprisonment. Neville Robert Henderson, 50, of Mosgiel appeared yesterday before Judge Michael Crosbie for sentence. Henderson was sentenced in Timaru in December 2006 to four years' imprisonment on three charges of doing an indecent act on a 14-year-old girl and three charges of sexual violation. That sentence was later reduced by the Court of Appeal to three and a half years.

The court heard yesterday that the material was discovered when Henderson's computer was seized as part of the police investigation, and although all the images had been deleted, they had been resurrected from the hard drive. Defence counsel Wayne Van Vuuren said it was a case of curiosity killing the cat. While looking at mainstream adult sites, Henderson had come across other sites by way of pop ups. He had looked at images and then deleted them. The vast majority depicted bestiality and urination material and appeared to involve consenting adults.

"He thought he had got rid of them, he wasn't distributing them, wasn't printing them out to keep them for later." Mr Van Vuuren said that of the material found, only 10 images and three videos had been classified by the Office of Film and Literature Classification. He said the offending did not carry with it the hallmarks of a sexual predator or paedophile, and submitted Henderson would not have received a greater term of imprisonment if he had been sentenced on this charge at the same time as sentencing on the sexual offences.

For the Crown, Andrew McRae said Henderson had not just looked at the images as they came up on his screen, but had saved some of them on to the hard drive of the computer. "That's an important factor -- as opposed to if he has inadvertently seen pictures and not saved them -- there is a difference in culpability." Mr McRae submitted that the images that had been classified as objectionable were representative of the total content, and said this offending would have been treated as an aggravating feature at the time of sentencing on the sexual offending, and would have resulted in a longer term of imprisonment.

Judge Crosbie said that having viewed the images, Henderson made a conscious decision to retain them, by saving them to the hard drive of his computer. He accepted there was no evidence that Henderson had been involved in chat rooms or forwarding images or any type of file sharing. "This sentencing is sending a message to you and the wider community that the courts and society will not tolerate the viewing or trading of this type of material that exploits the innocent and encourages the use and/or trading of images of this type."

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Corrections and Additional Information
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