Innocent until proven guilty

[Worldlife]

Another try to underline the dangers of witch hunting!!

When paedophile porn rings are broken we all applaud the police, but what happens when they bust the wrong person? “PC Advisor” Forum editor Peter Thomas examined such a case in the Issue 91 Spring 2003

Regular PC Advisor reader William Jones lives in Crumlin, Northern Ireland, and is registered disabled. He took up computing to enhance his quality of life and has since successfully obtained several diplomas.

Shortly before 8.am on 20 August 02 William and his wife were awoken by a loud banging on the door. It was officers from the Police Service for Northern Ireland’s computer crime unit. They told William that they were acting on information received in an anonymous phone call and had reason to believe that he had been downloading child pornography.

William was deeply shocked but readily offered up both his machines’ hard drives for inspection. To his surprise, a detective constable confessed that he had “little to no computer knowledge”, so the PC’s were confiscated for examination elsewhere.

William stressed that he was innocent and that at no time did he view or download pornography of any description.

The PC’s were duly bundled into the back of a police car, along with William’s floppy disks and CD’s, leaving him dazed and angry. His enquiries about how long the analysis would take were met with silence.

For almost three and a half months William received no information about when the systems would returned. At the end of November an officer told him that the data recovery personnel had said they would examine the PC’s “whenever they got around to it”

By this time members of William’s family and his local community had begun shunning both him and his wife. In William's words: “So many fools believe there’s no smoke without fire. I found myself trying to prove my innocence to people who should know better”

Desperate to bring the nightmare to an end, William contacted his local newspaper and within 24 hours the police ran to tell William that his computers were being examined. Two days later they rang to say that there was no trace of any pornography on either PC and that they would be returned “as soon as possible”.

Williams place another call to The Belfast Telegraph . Almost immediately the police rang back to say that the computers would be returned within 40 minutes.

Not a single word of apology was offered by the police. On starting up his PC’s William found that a DVD drive and USB ports on one machine no longer functioned. Unfortunately, it’s likely the warranties are now invalid owing to these clumsy investigations

[Worldlife]

I've emailed the Editor - Andrew Charlesworth

Congratulations on tackling the problems arising from the witch hunting for paedophilic material.

I had a potentially serious contact with the Police and described it fully in open forum on "The Scream" under the following link "Big Brother is Watching You"

http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/s...1673#post11673

Could we campaign for a change in the law here?

We have seen that the Police authorities are incompetent as far as the safe handling of seized equipment is concerned and we have seen the delays caused in clearing innocent people. In the past the evidence from the Police has been corrupted and it is not impossible that seized evidence might become tainted.

Where a person denies deliberately downloading paedophilic material I consider it would be much fairer if a suspect computer and its associated media could be taken to an accredited consultant and certified copies made immediately. One copy should be retained by the consultant, one given to the police authorities and one given to the suspect and the computer and all associated material returned immediately to the suspect.

Obviously as soon as paedophilic material is found then the computer and associated material should be removed from the suspect but it might be fairer that this was placed within the custody of a defending solicitor or barrister.

I don't think anyone should be placed in William's position because of a malicious or unfounded complaint.

[Memfis]

I'd be interested in their response to this

~Mem

[squidgy]

I'm led to believe that the way the police treat people on suspicion of terrorism or drug dealing isn't much better.

I think child porn is as disgraceful as the next man. You wouldn't catch me getting involved in something like that.

But something worries me. Occasionally I read articles in the paper saying that people have been arrested for collecting child porn from the internet, which they have paid for using a credit card.

Huh?

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but usually, when someone's selling something a bit dodgy, like drugs or weapons, it's all cash only, so as to minimise the chance of it being traced. Furthermore, your criminal supplier then shuffles his takings around several bank accounts in different countries - this process is known as "money laundering". Sure I've bought illegal drugs for personal use in the past, but I've never found a dealer who takes credit cards.

So why is child porn different? To me, the idea that it's even possible to buy child porn using a credit card makes a complete nonsense of money laundering investigations.

Why does this bother me?

Admittedly I've collected one or two girlie pics in my time, which I've paid for. Using credit cards. The suppliers assure me that the models are all over 18, and in the past, I've been happy to take their word. Since reading other threads which cast doubt on what exactly constitutes child pornography, I'm not so sure - for example, some would say that it's child porn if the model [i]appears to be[i] under 18, even if she isn't.

Then of course there's the whole thing about faked up child porn being illegal too. I understand that prosecutors have sometimes found it difficult to prove that any given image is a photograph of a real child (which is illegal), and not one which has been drawn by an artist using a computer graphics package (which wasn't illegal in the past).

Gary Glitter, in his defence, said that he didn't know he was doing anything wrong. What if someone decides that my modest collection have girls that look a bit young in them?

Could it be that I've been unknowingly building up a child porn collection? This is partly what's sparked off my interest in Windows virus and trojan security, but now I think it would be better for me to face the issue head on.

Here's my attitude. If I get stung for child porn, I'm taking my suppliers down with me. If someone has sold me material on the understanding that it is not child porn, which I've paid using my Halifax Classic Visa credit card, and I get any grief for it, then I won't pay my bill from Halifax until they have credited it back off my account. The suppliers' merchant service provider can hit them with a chargeback.

What I'm hoping is that if I identify the source of any material which turns out to be real child porn, then I will have helped the investigators, and it would therefore not be in the police's interest to take any action against me.

Thing is, I'm a bit wary of banking on that. The media leads such witch-hunts. It seems that when a crime case is very high profile, the police are happy to nail anyone for it, as is evidenced by the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six.

On the other hand, perhaps it's time I had a bit of a declutter anyway, and cleared out these pics that I'm getting worried about (and cancel the subscription fees I'm paying too). It's always difficult to fling out stuff you've paid for though. So I just want to know - what's legal? and what isn't? And if there's ever any doubt over the legality of anything I've done, what exactly are my rights, and what's the best way to handle the situation?

Any comments? Thanks.

[Steed]

Where a person denies deliberately downloading paedophilic material I consider it would be much fairer if a suspect computer and its associated media could be taken to an accredited consultant and certified copies made immediately. One copy should be retained by the consultant, one given to the police authorities and one given to the suspect and the computer and all associated material returned immediately to the suspect.

This does seem a reasonable idea, if it could be made to work, suspects are after all given duplicate blood samples and tapes of interviews, where relevant.

Malicious allegations are of course devastating to the accussed, especially in any sort of sex case, Vics idea would help protect the wrongly accused and do nothing to hinder investigations against the guilty.

Steed

Edit: Sorry Squidgy, your post wasn't there when I started typing. If you are in any doubt, get rid of it, would be my advise.

[Worldlife]

Steed....My suggestion comes from being involved with checking that pub landlords had not watered down their drinks.

We used to shake or stir the sample carefully and then divide it equally into three separate bottles each of which was closed with an official seal. One bottle was given to the publican and one bottle was taken to the Public Analyst. The third bottle was kept at our offices and if the Analyst reported it was satisfactory it was then disposed of a tChristmas or some other celebration

If however a sample proved unsatisfactory the publican, if he disputed the Public Analyst's report, could arrange for an independent examination by a Consultant.

If there was significant disagreement between the Consultant and Public Analyst the Court might ask for a comparative analysis of the third sample.

The most important part of Squidgy's post for me is:-

What if someone decides that my modest collection have girls that look a bit young in them?

Could it be that I've been unknowingly building up a child porn collection? This is partly what's sparked off my interest in Windows virus and trojan security, but now I think it would be better for me to face the issue head on.

Are you suggesting Squidgy that it would be possible for someone by virus or trojan put an child porn image on anyone's computer. If so would smart computer literate kids be able to set up a teacher they wanted to get rid of and make an anonymous complaint.

BTW it might be that I will be silenced for a while . This morning I sent the Police an email complaint about a financial scam and to which I recieved a prompt auto reply. A real reply arrived within the hour explaining that the complaint would be referred to Trading Standards and it had an auto response that I clicked on right away.

However I was actually in my ID and handle for dealing with naughty women and so my autoreply went from different email address and different ID

I dropped a further acknowledgement assuring them that I had definitely got the email response and apologised for the incorrect autoreply.

[Tattooed]

It is possible for someone to virus or trojan a child porn image on anyone's computer I know someone it happend to



Tattooed

[Worldlife]

Tattooed confirms that a child porn image ,that the owner had not downloaded ,was inserted on that person's computer.

Would the prosecution be able to prove that an image was downloaded by a named individual and not by a trojan or an unauthorised person using the computer without authority?

What's the absolute proof here?