Disgraced businessman Ron Brierley fights to be released from jail

Fallen corporate raider Ron Brierley is fighting to be released from prison after he jailed over a cache of child abuse material.

Disgraced former businessman Ron Brierley is fighting to be released from prison three months early after he was last month jailed for possessing a cache of child abuse material.

The New Zealand-born corporate raider pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing child abuse material after he was caught with a cache of illegal images on his laptop at Sydney Airport in 2019.

District Court Judge Sarah Huggett sentenced Brierley to 14 months in jail having rejected his assertion that he did not know the pictures were illegal.

He was set to be released from jail on May 13 next year at the conclusion of a seven-month non-parole period; however, he has launched an appeal to the NSW Supreme Court.

A one-hour appeal hearing was on Thursday set down for February 1 next year despite the courts facing a backlog of cases due to Covid.

The crown agreed to an expedited hearing because Brierley’s non-parole period was set to expire in May.

Ron Brierley was last month jailed for possessing child abuse material. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

The former head of the Bank of New Zealand and ex-SCG Trust board member had claimed he did not know the downloaded images were illegal when he was confronted by Australian Border Force officers, saying “they’ve been approved by various bodies”.

“I reckon they’re all, they are perfectly OK,” Brierley told officers at the time.

He also claimed he looked at them for “recreation” and found them “interesting”.

A stockpile of more than 10,000 child abuse material images was discovered on his laptop and two USBs when he was stopped en route to Fiji on December 17, 2019.

When police raided his Point Piper home, they found a further 35,000-plus images of child abuse material on his laptop and USBs.

None of the images depicted cruelty, torture or children engaged in sexual acts.

He has appealed to the Court of Appeal in a bid to be freed from jail early. Picture: AAP Image/Dominica Sanda.

In all, Brierley had 49,795 images in his possession with all, except one, being “category 2” images that depicted female children in clothing, swimwear or underwear in sexualised poses.

There was a single “category 1” image of a naked child in a sexualised pose on a bed with her anus and genitalia exposed.

The pictures depicted girls as young as four years old and Brierley admitted he used the images for his own sexual gratification due to his lifelong sexual interest in pre-pubescent girls.

Ron Brierley being knighted in Wellington in May 1988. He has since forfeited the title. Picture: Wikipedia

Brierley has suffered a dramatic fall from grace since being charged, with the court previously being told he had become a social pariah, including having his name scrubbed from public buildings and schools.

It also resulted in him being ignominiously stripped of his knighthood.

The court was told on Thursday that Brierley was set to watch his appeal hearing from prison.

His solicitor Penny Musgrave said she would be tendering evidence about the difficulties the 84-year-old had been facing in prison.

“I anticipate there will be an updated affidavit and there may be some medical evidence,” Ms Musgrave said.