New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

New Zealand Case Law

With or on element
  • 6 Sept 2021

    SEYMOUR v R [2021] NZHC 2322

    Citation
    [2021] NZHC 2322
    Court
    High Court

    Taking photographs of a sleeping child that focus on intimate areas and involve staging (lifting the child's top), taken in private by an adult who controlled the child, can be objectively indecent under s 132; motive is not required to render the act indecent though surrounding circumstances (subject matter, posing, purpose) determine whether the act is capable of being indecent; the 'with or on' element was satisfied because the child was under the defendant's control; the District Court judge correctly dismissed the s 147 application and the conviction stands.