Child Abuse Material Charges Withdrawn

Our client was a 35-year-old marketing consultant. Police executed a search warrant on his residence following the receipt of information that his IP address may have accessed child abuse material.

As part of the search, police seized his computer, iPad and mobile phone.

Following a review of the devices, police charged him with a number of offences relating to possession of child abuse material. It was alleged that this material was found within group chats on his phone on Whatsapp and Telegram.

Our client explained to us that he had never accessed child abuse material. In respect of the group chats, he advised that there were numerous people in the group chats and that he did not open or view the chats often or in some cases, at all.

Police results suggested that the child abuse material had been accessed on specific dates and times. Our client vehemently denied this.

In light of this, we retained one of our trusted cybersecurity experts to review the device and prepare a report. This required us to arrange for them to attend the police station and review the device in a secure facility.

Following a review of the device, our expert was able to provide an opinion that the access logs of the device did show interactions with the child abuse material on particular dates and times. However, what the prosecution could not prove was what that access involved and whether the access was deliberate. Our expert explained that the ‘access’ alleged by the prosecution could have simply been the app updating itself, or downloading the child abuse material when the client was looking at other messages in the chats. It did not necessarily prove that he was in fact deliberately accessing the material or even knew of its existence.

Following the receipt of this report, we served it on the Crown with an expert certificate. We also drafted representations which persuasively set out the findings of our expert as well as what the prosecution was required to prove in order to establish possession on the part of our client.

Ultimately, the Director of Public Prosecutions was persuaded through our negotiations to withdraw all charges against our client early in the proceedings.

Our client and his family were overjoyed and can now live their lives.