R -v- DM – Swansea Crown Court
The Defendant was accused of making and possessing unlawful images that were identified by Police on two home computers.
An expert from Athena identified that the images had been automatically stored to the hard drive when nudist websites had been browsed.
The Police then instructed an independent expert who supported their original findings and also identified further supportive material.
The case proceeded to Trial at Crown Court and the Prosecution offered no evidence after 3 days into the Court hearing.
R -v- MT – Preston Crown Court
The Defendant was accused of making and possessing unlawful images that were identified by Police on his home computer.
An expert from Athena examined the origins of the images and identified that they had been created as the user browsed the Internet.
During the browsing activity a number of items of malicious software had also been encountered. A review of these items by Athena experts revealed that they were likely to have caused the creation of the images.
The Police examiner agreed with this and the Prosecution case was dropped.
R -v- GS – Southampton Crown Court
An Investigator at Athena forensics was instructed to examine computer evidence on behalf of Hampshire Police for unlawful images.
The examination revealed the presence of a significant number of unlawful images as well as chat messages and e-mails to implicate the accused in further offences.
The Defendant pleaded to all of the charges at Crown Court.
R -v- RP – Harrow Crown Court
12 Indecent Images of Children were identified on an Apple laptop computer by Police. Defendant charged with making and possessing those images.
The evidence was examined by an Athena Forensics Computer Forensic Expert and found that 2 were borderline in age, that they had been sent to the user via a Skype group as part of a large number of images and had not been ‘clicked’ on by the user.
The Prosecution offered no evidence following disclosure of our computer forensic expert report and the charges were dropped.
R -v- DD – Southwark Crown Court
68 Indecent Images of Children were identified by Police on an Apple laptop computer and an Apple iPhone mobile phone. Defendant charged with making and possessing the images along with other charges. The Defendant denied the charges and claimed that they had been sent to him unsolicited.
The evidence was obtained from the Police and examined by an Athena Forensics Computer Forensic Expert who found that 64 of the images had been created by the automatic operation of the Internet browsing software on the computer and may not have been viewed by the user.
Also, any specific references to ages on the pages that had contained those images was that they were over the age of 18 and relate to a well known adult pornographic website.
The images that were found on the mobile phone had been received within a WhatsApp chat group when another member of the group had sent them to all users. The Defendant had made no attempt to click or view them.
A joint expert agreement was produced between our expert and the Police expert.
The Defendant was found not guilty after trial by Jury of all of the charges relating to the presence of the images on the mobile phone and computer.
R -v- ES – Kingston Crown Court
308 Indecent Images of Children were identified by Police on a computer that contained 4 hard drives. The Defendant was charged with making and possessing the images. The Defendant denied the charges and claimed that whilst he had frequently downloaded and browsed adult pornography, he was unaware of the presence of the unlawful images.
The evidence was obtained from the Police and examined by an Athena Forensics Computer Forensic Expert who found that the indecent images of children were located within folders that had been organised, however, they also contained a large number of adult pornographic images and evidence was identified to suggest that unlawful images had been stored amongst large group of lawful adult material.
Other indecent images had been stored automatically within system image cache files and would not have been accessible by the normal user.
The Prosecution offered no evidence on the morning of the trial following disclosure of our computer forensic expert report and various case conferences with the expert at court and the charges were dropped.
R -v- MN – Bristol Crown Court
6 Indecent Images of Children and 10 of extreme pornography were identified by Police on an Apple iPhone mobile phone. The Defendant was charged with making and possessing the images. The Defendant denied the charges and denied being aware of the presence of the images on his phone.
The evidence was obtained from the Police and examined by an Athena Forensics Mobile Phone Forensic Expert who found that the indecent images of children and extreme pornography were located within WhatsApp messages that had been received from other users.
One of the images had been sent from the handset, however, the age and nature of that image were not believed to satisfy the guidelines for an indecent image of a child.
An joint expert agreement was produced between our expert and the Police expert.
The Prosecution offered no evidence following discussion with the Police expert and the charges were dropped.
R -v- DB – Newport Crown Court
2 Indecent Images of Children were identified by Police on a Samsung Galaxy mobile phone. The Defendant was charged with making and possessing the images. The Defendant denied the charges and denied being aware of the presence of the images on his phone.
The evidence was obtained from the Police and examined by an Athena Forensics Mobile Phone Forensic Expert who found that the indecent images of children contained no file extensions and, therefore, could not be viewed in the normal way. No evidence was found to suggest the source of them and due to this the possibility that they had been downloaded in that state could not be discounted and the Prosecution then dropped all charges.
R -v- CG – Maidstone Crown Court
4 Indecent Images of Children were identified by Police on a laptop computer. The Defendant was charged with making the images along with other charges. The Defendant denied the charges and denied any knowledge of them.
The evidence was obtained from the Police and examined by an Athena Forensics Computer Forensic Expert who found that the images were within deleted areas of the hard drive and, due to that, it was not possible to ascertain the point of creation, deletion or the origins of the images. This made it impossible to determine whether the images had been created deliberately or intentionally by the user or inadvertently amongst other images.
Following disclosure of our report, the Prosecution dropped all charges.
R -v- GE – Shrewsbury Crown Court
26 Indecent Images of Children were identified by Police on a computer as well as Internet browsing history activity and file activity relating to peer-to-peer software. The Defendant was charged with making the images . The Defendant denied the charges and denied any knowledge of them. He also believed that other people may have been responsible for the creation of them.
The evidence was obtained from the Police and examined by an Athena Forensics Computer Forensic Expert who found that the images could not have been created in 2013 as suggested by the Prosecution as the drive had not been manufactured until the following year.
No evidence to indicate the specific identity of the user responsible for the creation of the images or the supporting activity was identified, however, the images were found to have been transferred to the drive as part of a group of images and, therefore, the user may not have been aware of the presence of the illegal images.
Following disclosure of our report, the Prosecution dropped all charges.
