A convicted paedophile has failed in his appeal against an eight-year jail sentence following a written guilty plea.
On 26 April, the 55-year-old Clinton Calder was sentenced to 10 years in prison, suspended for two years in the Wynberg Regional Court, Cape {town} Etc reports.
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As part of his plea, he was convicted on 3 195 counts of possession of pornography, including one count of distributing child pornography, one count of the importation of child pornography and 19 counts of the creation of child pornography.
As per News24, his name was to be entered into the National Register of Sex Offenders and he was declared unfit to possess a firearm.
‘Calder was arrested after a Belgian chief inspector who was assigned to investigate areas online and offline known for trading child abuse images, discussing child abuse, or luring children for contact offences noticed that some of the internet traffic on the child pornography file-sharing platform came via South Africa,’ says Eric Ntabazalila, spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority.
‘The investigation found that members of the online network engaged in peer-to-peer file sharing of child pornography.’
Ntabazalila adds that this information was shared with South African authorities, which led to Calder’s arrest.
Calder operated under a pseudonym on the GigaTribe platform between 23 September 2014 and 7 June 2015.
In his appeal to the Western Cape High Court, Calder described his conduct as a ‘moment of madness’, stating that he had been ‘doing crazy things’, sought psychological treatment and was suffering from depression.
‘He further argued for a non-custodial sentence due to his clean criminal record and personal circumstances and that he needed private medical and psychological treatment for his medical condition and sexual affliction,’ Ntabazalila says.
‘He further submitted that such specialised facilities are not available in prison. He also emphasised that his pulmonary conditions, which he believed would be best treated outside prison because of the excessive smoking habits of other prisoners, was a factor that the regional magistrate failed to adequately consider in sentencing him.’
The appeal judges reportedly found that the regional magistrate did not fail to have regard for Calder’s medical conditions. However, the regional magistrate considered them and concluded that incarceration remained appropriate.
In addition, they ruled that the sentence was not too severe and disproportionate to other similar cases.
It ‘provides some justice and removes online child sexual offenders from accessing their devices and the internet, thereby creating a safer community for our young ones,’ says Western Cape Director of Public Prosecutions Advocate Nicolette Bell.
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Picture: Foto24 / Lerato Maduna / Gallo Images