Krystal Harvey, 23, pleaded guilty to filming and selling the hideous footage herself.

A mother in New Zealand has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing her own one-year-old son and selling the one minute of footage to a paedophile she’d met online for $300.

But astonishingly, 23-year-old Krystal Harvey was only sentenced to eight months home detention, 100 hours community service and 20 months of judicial monitoring, TVNZ reports.

Grandmother disgusted

The woman’s own mother, Jocelyn Vaega, said she was disgusted by the way her daughter had abused her own son and was not convinced she showed any remorse.

"How can a mother, supposed to be protecting her child from the paedophiles of the world, expose him to them," she told TVNZ.

“My grandson would not have known what was going on. He was so vulnerable and she’s meant to love him and take care of him.”

Jail would not help, lawyer says

Krystal’s lawyer argued that community service and home detention would be more suitable for the young mother than jail as she would receive counselling and and rehab so she could understand the extent of her depravity and not reoffend.

She also argued that the little boy appeared to be asleep at the time and a report also found that she had a low risk of reoffending.

In his summary, Judge Phil Recordon said the breach of trust was "at the highest level a mother could be involved with,” and added, "You're someone who very clearly has never been able to form an attachment with anyone. Your life has really been a mess until now."

But, he said, he didn’t think jail was the answer. ”Prison would be a BAND-AID covering over your issues."

It’s hard, however, to imagine why anyone would need “counselling” to understand that this sort of behaviour is beyond unacceptable.

It’s difficult to see why anyone would need to be taught that a mother’s instinct is to protect her child, not feed him into the hands of predators who want to use his debasement to fuel their own hideous desires.

Police warn against vigilante justice

A Facebook page has been set up demanding that the young mother be jailed for her crimes. However police warned the administrators that any threats of violence against Krystal would not be tolerated, nor would anything that identified her children.

And this of course, is the worst part about acts of this nature. The event itself is hideous enough but the footage has the potential to remain online forever, traumatising and re-traumatising that poor child once he's old enough to understand what has happened.

As his grandmother told TheNew Zealand Herald:

"It might not have an impact on him now but in the future it will. We're the ones that are going to have to explain what happened."

The baby boy is being cared for by his grandparents and it’s believed another child - a girl - has also been taken away from Krystal’s care.

Women sexually abusing children

Although sex abuse against children is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men, a growing number of women have been convicted for the crime.

As Kidspot previously reported, 10 percent of complaints made to the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Abuse were against women. That’s around 220 total as of June last year.

Data about why women commit sexual offences against children is limited as most research into child sex assault has focused on male perpetrators.

A number of small studies undertaken in Australia, the US, Canada, the UK and the Netherlands from 2002 indicate that a large number of women who commit child sex offences have drug and alcohol problems as well as high rates of mental illness including psychosis and personality disorders.

One study showed that they present with high rates of child abuse histories themselves, much more so than their male counterparts. They were also likely to have committed their crimes with a male accomplice or accomplices.

According to Krystal Harvey's own lawyer it's unlikely she'll ever see her children again.