CONTENT WARNING

A 55-year-old Christchurch man has been jailed for five years and two months after admitting to distributing and possessing child sexual exploitation material, including graphic images of babies and children.

Alexandre Harpur appeared in the Christchurch District Court on Tuesday, where he pled guilty to 19 charges.

He has previous convictions for similar offending, including contact offences against a child in 2011.

The Department of Internal Affairs said the case began in January 2025 when Harpur started communicating online with a covert investigator and indicated a sexual interest in children, bestiality, and incest.

He then sent the investigator multiple objectionable publications.

A search warrant executed at his home in May led to the seizure of several devices.

Forensic analysis uncovered extensive child abuse imagery and records of explicit online chat conversations.

Investigators found 514 files depicting the sexual exploitation and abuse of children.

Harpur knowingly distributed 172 of these to other offenders across several online platforms. Eighteen of the files involved infants under the age of 2. He also created five objectionable publications involving adult bestiality.

Manager of the Digital Child Exploitation Team Tim Houston said the investigation showed offenders could not rely on online anonymity.

“Anyone thinking of producing, accessing or sharing material that depicts the exploitation or abuse of children should be warned that they cannot hide behind online anonymity. We can and will use all resources at our disposal to identify you and put you before the courts,” Houston said.

The court ordered the destruction of Harpur’s devices. He will be placed on the Child Sex Offender Register.

The Digital Child Exploitation Team conducted 69 investigations in 2024 and helped safeguard 14 New Zealand children from harm. The filtering system also blocked more than one million attempts to access websites hosting child sexual abuse material.