An Auckland man has been sentenced to nine months’ home detention for the possession of child sexual exploitation material, including images of children as young as 5 years old.

Lee Irving Musham pleaded guilty to one representative charge of knowingly possessing objectionable publications in the form of child sexual exploitation material.

The sentence was delivered in the Manukau District Court yesterday.

An investigation by the Department of Internal Affairs’ Digital Child Exploitation Team led to search warrants being executed at Musham’s residential and business addresses.

Several electronic devices, containing sexual exploitation images of children as young as 5 years old, bestiality, and computer-generated files promoting bestiality, were seized.

Despite his offending, Musham is not required to register as a child sex offender.

The devices used to commit the offending were ordered to be destroyed.

“Collecting and viewing this material is not passive offending. It condones the abuse children suffer to satisfy the market for these images,” the manager of the Digital Child Exploitation Team, Tim Houston, said.

“One way we work to put an end to this form of child abuse is to stop those who create, collect and distribute this material.”

Last year, 69 investigations into child exploitation were conducted, which helped to safeguard 14 children from harm, the department said.

The Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System blocked over one million attempts to access websites hosting child sexual abuse material, it added.