Posted on 05/17/2009 10:00:21 PM PDT by Maelstorm
CHILD abuse campaigners Sara Payne and Shy Keenan have backed a top cop who is risking jail in a battle over suspected paedophile images.
They said they were “1,000 per cent” behind Chief Constable Colin Port, who is refusing to return 87 computer hard drives to their owner.
They were seized from the man’s home along with 2,500 child porn images — but he claimed the raid was illegal and won a High Court order banning police from examining them.
Ms Keenan said: “Sara and I cannot believe this man has used the law to stop the police taking proper action. The law seems to be protecting the wrong person.”
The wealthy 68-year-old was raided over possible conspiracy to possess indecent photos.
He had given evidence in child porn cases as a computer expert, but was later discredited. Mr Port, head of Avon and Somerset police, risks jail for contempt of court.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesun.co.uk ...
I read a related article (same story)... it said —
“We don’t know what’s on these hard drives, but it is highly likely they contain indecent material going back to the 1990s. They were found with over 2,500 hard copies of child abuse images and they must have come from somewhere.
“Common sense dictates to me that we shouldn’t be returning indecent images to anyone — yet I am prevented from even examining the material.”
Now this sounds mighty weird to me... he’s saying he doesn’t know what is on the hard drives because they’ve been prevented from examining them — but — they shouldn’t return the hard drives, because they’re sure it had this illegal material.
Now, that just doesn’t make any sense at all...
I’m pretty sure they’ve examined them but can’t say so publicly.
Well..., it appears they’ve got a big problem, then...
So burn a copy of them which would NOT be looked at until they dot all the “i’s” and cross all the “t’s” with the proper warrant. Then they have what was on his drives when they were returned. They can say they kept an archival copy to be sure everything he had on them was in good order. But if they examine the stuff without a proper warrant, they SHOULD go to jail.
Once law enforcement has gone the wrong way about a particular case, they don’t usually get a second chance at it. They’ve pretty much cooked their goose at this point.
Definitely more behind this story than is reported here.
87 hard drives - that is the RAID to beat all RAIDS.
Perhaps the presstitute who wrote this one up could enlighten us mere mortals as to how a PC can control that many hard drives?
I was wondering the same thing.
However, if someone DID have 87 hard drives it sure would be one way to try and tap information without leaving the same trail of cookies. Maybe they were attempting to deceive?
You’re correct, of course. Bit of a pity in a case like this!
More than one computer, that’s all...
Due to certain circimstances he had fallen out of favour with the Law, so they seized all the cloned hard drives on the cases he was working on to put him out of business.
Not according to Hoyle, which was why the legal review judges spanked the Chief Constable.
Return them and then arrest him when he takes possession.
You said — Return them and then arrest him when he takes possession.
—
It sounds more like the whole thing is a political set-up, to me...
Take a look at post #12...
Look on the disk drives and we will know for sure.
But looking is not legal. The legal system has this curious rule that police cannot just seize and examine papers and materials being used by lawyers and expert witnesses being used to prepare cases. Unreasonable but thems the rules.
Do we want to know the truth or not? I’m not keen on the whole idea of making decisions based on ignorance.
And yet you are relying on the media reported claims of a couple of activists and a Chief Constable breaking the rules.
"You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use then as the backbone of a life trying to defend something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it."
So if we look at the contents of the drives, we will know the truth.
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