‘‘132A Aggravating factor to be taken into account in
sentencing, etc, for certain publications offences

‘‘(2) In sentencing or otherwise dealing with an offender for the
offence, the court must take into account as an aggravating
factor the extent to which any publication that was the subject
of the offence is objectionable because it does any or all of the
following:
‘‘(a) promotes or supports, or tends to promote or support,
the exploitation of children, or young persons, or both,
for sexual purposes:
‘‘(b) describes, depicts, or otherwise deals with sexual con-
duct with or by children, or young persons, or both:
‘‘(c) exploits the nudity of children, or young persons, or
both. ”

The “promotes or supports” is a key criterion. While most people’s thoughts would go immediately to images, I can see why Steve O’Brien has worded his response to you that way. They do need to get their story straight.

If they know of websites containing images of child sexual abuse, why have they not reported them to Interpol? Or the Virtual Global Taskforce?

At the very least, send an email to the company that hosts the website. Someone did exactly that to a number of websites earlier this year, as an experiment (sadly the link escapes me); many of the sites in question went offline within hours, and within 24 hours I think 90% of them had either been deactivated, or the hosts had responded with an email confirming that the client possessed all necessary documentation to verify the ages of the participants.

Seriously, who does this O’Brien feller think he’s kidding??