Stephen  Scully

Background

Background
Background from this Otago Daily Times story here
Child pornography, including images of babies and pre-school children being tortured and sexually abused, were shown to young people by a Dunedin man, who invited them to his home and sexually molested them over a lengthy period, the Dunedin District Court heard yesterday. The pornography on a computer belonging to Stephen Brett Scully (44), storeman, was described as "some of the worst exploitation of children seen by staff at the Electronic Crime Laboratory", Crown solicitor Robin Bates told Judge John Macdonald. As a result of his offending against the young people between January 1999 and December 31 last year, Scully was sentenced to seven years jail for sexually violating one of the victims.

Concurrent prison terms of two and three years were imposed for the other sexual offending, with concurrent one year sentences for creating and displaying child pornography. One of the boys was sexually assaulted by Scully for more than three years, from the beginning of 2000, when he was 11, until the end of December last year, when he was 14. Scully would get the boy to perform sexual acts which he would video and store on his computer. He would also distribute the images to the other paedophiles with whom he was communicating. The offending with the particular victim occurred, on average, about once a month over the three years, Mr Bates said.

In relation to the other victims, Scully would show them the child pornography and then commit sexual indecencies against them. He would offer them beer and allow them access to his computer. During this time, he was communicating with other paedophiles through the Internet and regularly trading with them child pornography photos, videos and images he had created himself. Scully earlier this month admitted two charges of sexual violating the first boy by having oral sex with him on numerous occasions, two charges of indecently assaulting him and one charge of doing an indecent act.

He also admitted indecently assaulting a girl and exposing his penis to her and to three young boys as he masturbated in front of them. And he admitted five representative charges under the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act of displaying objectionable material to people under the age of 18 and a representative charge of knowingly making an objectionable publication in relation to the first victim. From the victim impact statements, it was clear Scully’s offending had a considerable impact on the young people, who had expressed feelings of confusion, anger and disgust, Judge Macdonald said. As a result of his actions, Scully had lost everything, his wife, his family and his business but, as counsel John Westgate acknowledged, that was selfinflicted, the judge said.

He expressed the hope Scully would obtain some help so there would be no more victims. He also accepted the defendant was now ashamed and remorseful. But there were five young and vulnerable victims, whose trust had been breached over a lengthy period and who had been profoundly affected by what the defendant had done. Scully’s actions, including offering them alcohol, showed premeditation and were part of the seduction process. There were no mitigating factors, the judge said. The guilty plea had spared the victims from having to give evidence. Sentencing had to denounce the offending, deter him and others and hold him accountable, the judge told Scully. "But overriding all of this is the need to protect the community," Judge Macdonald said. Had it not been for the guilty plea, the sentence would have started at nine or 10 years, he told Scully. At the request of the Crown, the judge made an order for the destruction of all the objectionable material and forfeiture of Scully’s computer.