A New Zealand grandfather and multi-millionaire has been jailed for just four-and-a-half years after live-streaming horrific child sexual abuse.
By day, Martin Lawes was a successful businessman from Auckland who boasted a huge property portfolio, had a loving wife and was even a Justice of the Peace.
But behind closed doors the 75-year-old was living a sick and twisted double life, directing the sexual abuse of children online, some as young as three years old.
Multi-millionaire and grandfather Martin Lawes has been jailed for child sex abuse crimes
At Lawes’ sentencing in the High Court in Auckland on Tuesday, Justice Edwin Wylie said the paedophile was ‘well aware’ the ages of the children he was directing and watching would be sexually abused, Stuff reported.
Lawes depraved behaviour began in 2000, when he claimed he needed an ‘outlet.’
His form of escapism at the time was talking on chat forums to Asian women abroad.
The vulnerable women Lawes targeted were of the age of consent, but soon the businessman began to pay to watch and direct children being sexually abused.
Lawes pleaded guilty to three charges of entering into a dealing for the sexual exploitation of minors, as well as charges of importing and possessing objectionable material.
In handing down his sentence, Justice Wylie described Lawes’ offending as ‘pre-meditated, repetitive and persistent’.
Martin Lawes has expressed no remorse for his sickening child sexual abuse charges
Lawes admitted his horrific offending to police in 2015 after initial denials.
‘He also stated that he was ‘helping’ the people involved by giving them money as they were often living in poverty,’ court documents read.
In 2016, New Zealand police discovered Lawes had made 36 payments to five adults involved in a sex-abuse ring.
A court heard before 2008 he had used a Yahoo email alias to instruct a number of women in the Philippines to perform a range of sexual acts on a webcam.
The exploited girls featuring in his sick ‘shows’ ranged in age from seven to 17.
Investigators seized three of Lawes’ computers and found 296 media files containing the sexual exploitation and abuse of young children.
Lawes’ sentence was reduced from 10 years to eight years and six months.
He then received further discounts for good character along with his age and medical conditions.
His co-operation with police and guilty plea then saw a final sentence of four years and six months.
His ‘lenient’ sentence hasn’t been welcomed by everyone, with prominent New Zealand TV personality Duncan Garner labelling the outcome ‘an embarrassment.’
‘This entitled sense of creepiness, where he targeted these young kids in the Philippines and he had all these images of them,’ he said, Newshub reported.
‘Four years to me is not enough, he’ll be out in two and a half years and it’s people like this that hide in our community amongst us and they look the same as us.
‘Four years, not enough. Completely not enough. What an embarrassment.’
Martin Lawes’ possible view from his cell after he was jailed for child sexual abuse charges