Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
A government employee has been found guilty of possessing live stream videos from the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings.
The man appeared before Judge David Robinson for a judge alone trial in the Dunedin District Court on Monday, charged with possessing an objectionable publication.
He has interim suppression of his name and occupation.
The man argued that he had the videos for work purposes, he did not know they were objectionable at the time and he did not believe they had saved on his personal phone after emailing them from his work phone.
On Thursday, Judge Robinson found the charge was proven beyond reasonable doubt, saying the man's explanations were unconvincing and it was "entirely implausible" that he was unaware that they were objectionable as the classification had been well publicised.
New evidence was presented to the court showing the videos were in his phone's gallery alongside videos of his family, and the man was recalled to the stand.
Crown prosecutor Mike Brownlie asked if he was aware the objectionable videos appeared in his phone gallery.
"No, I was not aware these videos were on my phone," the defendant said.
When asked, he accepted that they were visible in the gallery but he would not tend to relook at older photos and videos he had taken.
The court heard that there was no metadata proving if the videos had ever been opened or not.
Judge Robinson rejected the man's evidence, saying they would have been clearly visible and he appeared to be trying to explain away the videos in his gallery.
No conviction was entered.
The penalties for the charge of possessing objectionable videos are a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, or a fine of up to $50,000.
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