Supreme Court affirms mere possession of child pornography justifies jail time-Ronelle Snyders

[Nat Quinn]

The Western Cape High Court has confirmed an effective sentence of eight years in prison for a Cape Town sex offender, Clinton Calder, who possessed thousands of child pornographic footage. Acting Judge Colin Kahanovitz warned that this was not a crime to be “underestimated” and ruled that despite Calder’s health problems, his sentence should stand.

Clinton Calder, 55, has described his possession of thousands of images attempting to portray child pornography several times since his arrest and as stupid, crazy and “a moment of madness.”

But the photos he had in his possession all show the violent sexual abuse of girls. A summary of the images has a spreadsheet of about 80 pages filled with about 40 entries per page.

At the time of his arrest, Calder was working as a broker for a courier company. He was a smoker, despite being diagnosed with a serious lung disease as well as “pedophilic disorder”.

With evidence in mitigation of sentence, Calder described his involvement in child pornography as a “moment of madness”. It lasted nine months. He said he did “crazy things”; that he was currently seeing a psychologist, suffering from depression and having suicidal thoughts.

He was diagnosed with obstructive pulmonary disease, but when he was seen by a doctor, he had not yet quit smoking.

His handle on the file-sharing network Gigatribe was Rattex69 and he used the platform to download child pornography between September 23, 2014 and June 7, 2015.

The late ao officer Delene Grobler-Koonin, who was killed during a robbery in 2023, testified in Calder’s case that with the increase in SAPS resources and attention to these investigations, more and more arrests are taking place. She said about every fifth person arrested was also a practical abuser of children and maker of child pornography.

She testified that child pornography users had to be eliminated as they created the market which led to children being raped to produce the footage.

In Calder’s case, she said, distribution meant making the footage in his possession available to other people. To do this, the violator had to be provided with a password. One could not access these images simply by searching the internet. She said she was aware of investigations into more than 180 suspects in South Africa – and this represented the “tip of the iceberg”.

Global network
Calder was convicted of 3,195 counts of possession of child pornography, distributing child pornography, importing child pornography and creating child pornography.

Calder pleaded guilty to these charges on November 29, 2018 and was sentenced by the Wynberg Regional Court to 10 years in prison. Two years were conditionally suspended. He is currently serving his sentence at Brandvlei Prison in Worcester.

Calder represented himself in his appeal against his sentence.

Acting Judge Colin Kahanovitz in his ruling described the background to Calder’s arrest and conviction:

“Calder’s arrest stemmed from information gathered by Chief Inspector Tim van Eester, Belgian Local Police, in the city of Antwerp, who was assigned to the criminal investigation division in the Crimes Against Persons and Team Sex Crimes Division.

“Part of the regular duties of Chief Inspector Van Eester has been to investigate areas offline and online known for trafficking footage of child abuses, discussing child abuse or luring children for contact violations.

“Van Eester noted that some of the internet traffic on the child pornography sharing platform came via South Africa and he shared this information with the relevant authorities in South Africa,” Kahanovitz wrote.

South African authorities acted on the information received and this led to Calder’s arrest.

“An online child pornography network was discovered where members of the network were involved in peer-to-peer file sharing of child pornographic footage. It has been established that a member of this network accessed it from South Africa. His location was determined and the SAPS seized a laptop found at his home containing child pornography,” the ruling continued.

At the time of his arrest, Calder had a previous conviction for drunk driving.

Colonel Kristen Clark, SAPS division commander – Investigative Psychology Unit Western Cape, diagnosed Calder with a paedophile disorder. She testified that not all people with pedophilic disorders were pedophiles, although all pedophiles had a pedophilic disorder.

The accused was sexually attracted to children but was not “hands-on” in committing his offences.

Dr Marcel Londt, a clinical social worker who testified for Calder, said his profile was typical of an offender of child sexual exploitation and recommended a non-freehold sentence. She said it’s impossible to say for sure whether Calder will repeat his offense again.

‘No remorse’
The Wynberg Regional Court described child pornography in its ruling as “the most abhorrent form of degradation, exploitation and abuse of children. The court also noted the frequency and consistency of Calder’s downloading of the child abuse material.”

Calder, the magistrate added, showed no remorse but simply felt sorry for the position he found himself in. Pleading guilty when one was caught red-handed, the magistrate said, was not evidence of remorse but a neutral factor.

Although there are no penalty clauses as such for these offences and the sentences are therefore at the discretion of the court, Kahanovitz said in his appeal judgment that looking at the sentences imposed in comparable matters, the only appropriate sentence in the circumstances was one of direct sentence. Imprisonment.

He said judges had in the past warned against “underestimating the offence in South Africa”.

“There is without any doubt a strong level of public outrage against the producers of such footage. Previous decisions have emphasized that such footage can only be made if a child is sexually abused.

“The question then arises is whether the mere possession of such footage should be treated as a lesser evil and therefore treated more leniently than related crimes. A further category of offence relates, for example, to a person who, although not the maker of the footage, not only owns it but also distributes it to others.”

Grobler-Koonin testified that the Gigatribe-linked investigations resulted in 203 arrests worldwide, including 15 cases in South Africa. The investigation was ongoing at the time of her testimony.

Regarding the incidence of the offence, the magistrate found the following: “These abuses have no geographical boundaries and are repeatedly committed and have increased at an alarming rate in South Africa and in this court’s jurisdiction.”

Calder argued that contracting Covid in jail because of his lung condition could be fatal to him and he would be better off receiving treatment outside of jail.

Kahanovitz ruled that the magistrate took Calder’s medical condition into account when she sentenced him to effective eight years in prison.

“I also find that the sentence is not too heavy and disproportionate to other cases,” he said. DM

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