Man caught with objectionable images says he has no idea how they ended up on his device

WARNING: This article discusses child sexual exploitation and may be upsetting to some readers.

For years, an SD card drifted from phone to phone, a pocket-sized archive of family life.

But beneath the surface lurked something far darker, images of children being sexually abused by adults concealed among the data.

Despite insisting he had no idea how the card ended up in his device, Malcolm Granich has now been found guilty of 11 charges of possessing objectionable material.

Granich faced a judge-alone trial in May before Judge Peter Davey in the Whangārei District Court, charged with 26 charges of possessing objectionable publications.

On November 29, 2021, police first interviewed Granich regarding a suspected objectionable image that was loaded up to a social media site using a cellular device from his home address.

At that interview, Granich admitted he sent “standard dick pics” of himself to girls he believed were over 18 years old.

Not convinced with his answers, Detective Richard Soper executed a search warrant at Granich’s home on December 10, 2021.

An Oppo mobile phone, a Huawei mobile phone and a box for a Samsung A10 were seized.

At the time, Granich told Soper there were a couple of images of pornography on the devices but “nothing illegal”.

On the Oppo phone, a secure folder was located named “Private Safe” which appeared to be locked by a six-digit pin and had data stored in it.

When he was questioned by police about the vault, he said it contained standard porn and was locked to stop his son accessing and that his wife was not into that type of pornography.

The Crown presented evidence at trial that on April 14, 2021, several images and videos of children in objectionable publications were created on the SD card from a Huawei phone. Those images related to charges 1 to 11.

Five of the images were created on the SD card on April 14 at 8.22pm and a video recording loaded at 8.27pm. There were also five screenshots taken of the video recording.

At 8.46pm another video was created of two males in pornographic activity with each other.

Records showed that all of those files were accessed a few hours later at 12am.

Then at 12.10am on April 15 a video of Granich filming himself masturbating was loaded onto the SD card. There were also a further six videos of Granich in pornographic poses with himself loaded at the same time.

Another image was created on November 1, 2020.

Granich’s lawyer Mathew Ridgley submitted it was uncertain whether the SD card was in Granich’s phone on April 14 however Judge Davey noted there were photographs of Granich on the card dating back to 2018.

The trial was heard in May and Judge Peter Davey released his decision this week. Photo / NZME

“The inference I draw is that this SD card had been used in the Huawei phone and a Samsung A10 phone before it was placed into Mr Granich’s Oppo mobile Phone,” Judge Davey said in his recently reserved decision.

“It seems that those images had been taken using a Huawei camera around that time.

“There are also further close-up images taken of Mr Granich between November 2019 and June 2020 located on the SD card which were taken using a Samsung SM-A105G camera.

Ridgley had also submitted at trial that Granich was the sender of the images recorded of himself rather than the receiver.

“I do not accept that submission because there is no evidence that anyone else was saving videos or images to the SD card in April 2021 and I fail to see why someone else would send such intimate videos and images of Mr Granich to him,” the judge said.

“Overall, I consider that the only reasonable inference from the above evidence is that SD card was in Mr Granich’s Oppo phone on April 14, 2021, and he was the person who was using that phone at the time.

“I am therefore sure that Mr Granish was the person who had physical custody and control of the objectionable publications on April 14, 2021, when they were saved to the SD Card.

In relation to charges 12 to 26, which the Crown could not prove any creation date, images or evidence of when they were deleted off the SD card, Judge Davey determined he could not be sure they were in Granich’s custody.

“I therefore cannot exclude the possibility that those images were deleted at some time before April 14, 2021, as there is no associated meta data for those images.”

Judge Davey found Granich guilty of 11 charges and dismissed the remaining 14.

Granich was remanded on bail and will be sentenced in October.

Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/ Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.