A man has been jailed for creating AI-generated images that showed him sexually exploiting children.

Blair Charles Noble photographed himself engaged in sexual acts with the fake characters he created by superimposing children’s faces on mature adult bodies.

The “mash up” of images were clearly fake, yet they still promoted the sexual exploitation of children, Judge Tom Gilbert said in sentencing Noble last month.

Noble had digitally created the cartoon or computer-generated images and videos using AI apps downloaded on to his two phones, which he left behind at home one day.

The videos created by Blair Noble were clearly fake, and consisted of children’s faces superimposed on mature adult bodies shown as engaging in sexual acts, the judge said. Photo 123/rf

His partner at the time opened one of the phones, saw the material, then went to the police.

Closer inspection by a digital forensics unit revealed 601 images and 29 videos identified as objectionable over the two devices, the police summary of facts said.

According to a decision released this month, the discovery last September led to two representative charges of knowingly making objectionable publications, to which Noble was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court to prison.

Images ‘not real’ but promoted exploitation

Judge Gilbert said all of the images were in a category of objectionable material which did not show a real child or young person, but which otherwise “tended to promote the sexual exploitation of children”.

“The videos created by you were clearly identifiable again as fake videos rather than realistic ones.

“They consisted of children’s faces superimposed upon mature adult bodies depicted to be engaging in sexual acts,” Judge Gilbert said.

Noble told police when questioned, he had used various apps downloaded from Play Store on to the phones which could “turn them [the images] into women and give them women parts like breasts”.

Judge Gilbert noted Noble’s “enormous criminal history” spanning 19 pages, but none of it was related to objectionable material.

Offending triggered by relationship failure

A pre-sentence report outlined that the offending occurred after a relationship derailed.

After Noble’s last prison term, he was released into the care of a residential community centre, and had maintained support from the Prisoners’ Aid & Rehabilitation Society.

Judge Gilbert said the people who had supported Noble reported no indication he had a sexual interest in children, and the offending caught them by surprise.

Before being locked up he had worked as a gardener and was “doing pretty well”, given his very chequered history, Judge Gilbert said.

The Crown suggested a two-and-a-half to three-year prison starting point for the offending with 25% credit for Noble’s guilty pleas.

Noble’s lawyer suggested half that as a starting point, taking into account there was “no actual child abuse” underpinning the imagery, which was “obviously fake”.

His lawyer also asked that he not be registered as a child sex offender, as the images were fictional and therefore no subject was aged 16 years or under.

Judge Gilbert said a statutory aggravating feature was that Noble’s offending promoted the sexual exploitation of children.

There was also the number of images and videos found, and the obvious premeditation involved in taking them.

Offending ‘less serious’ but might not always be the case

Judge Gilbert agreed the offending was “qualitatively different” to a situation where actual children were depicted being sexually abused.

He said it was less serious, but as the Crown pointed out, it was not always going to be the case that artificially generated images would be less serious as they may still appear to show a child being sexually abused.

Judge Gilbert acknowledged that as “quite a bit of the material” involved Noble’s own images, it was unlikely he would distribute it and there was no evidence he had.

“But nonetheless it was still unpleasant and serious offending,” the judge said.

From a starting point of two years in prison, Judge Gilbert arrived at the end sentence of 18 months, with leave to apply for home detention if a suitable address was found.

Judge not satisfied registration appropriate

Registration on the child sex offender list was automatic when a person received a prison term, but Judge Gilbert did not think in this case, it was warranted.

He said it was discretionary when a person was sentenced to home detention.

“I could only register you if I was satisfied that you posed a risk to the lives or sexual safety of one or more children or children generally.

“To cut a long story short, I am not satisfied that registration would be appropriate in this case,” he said.

Noble’s prison term included standard and special post release conditions.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.