By Rachel Morton
A Wellington man who organised an international child pornography ring, continued to offend, even after he'd been caught by police.
Daniel Moore was arrested in 2007 after a joint operation run by the United States Department of Homeland Security, New Zealand police and Internal Affairs.
Moore, who has already served jail for child pornography, was caught running one of the most sophisticated child porn operations the police have ever come across – all of which was run out of the 32-year-old's Wellington bedroom.
“Moore and others like him are directly responsible for the miserable lives of that the children depicted in the pictures. Without end users like him there would be no market,” says Crown Prosecutor Tom Gilbert.
Moore used a system called internet relay chat. It operates away from the general internet and can only be accessed by invitation.
He had a surveillance system set up around his home so he could be alerted to any raid and unplug his computer in time.
But police were too quick. They burst in and managed to drag him from his computer before he could disconnect.
The hard drive was fully encrypted which meant that the data on the drive could only be accessed while it was connected and running. Had the external hard drive been unplugged, all the data would have been lost.
For five days police and Internal Affairs inspectors kept up the pretence of being Moore and trapped other international paedophiles.
One, in the United States, was jailed for 18 years.
“The images depicted girls aged from four to 14 in a full range of activities including sexual posing, sexual activity with children, sexual activity with adults and with animals,” say Judge Bruce Davidson, of the Wellington District Court.
Moore was let out on bail but was arrested again in January 2009 after following a woman along oriental parade and filming up her skirt.
As a result of that his laptop and PC were seized.
“Some 8,000 images of pre-pubescent girls ranging from infant to 14 were found,” says Judge Davidson.
Moore told police he just couldn't help his behaviour.
He would have been sentenced to seven years jail but only received four and a half because he'd pleaded guilty and is taking part in counselling.
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