No evidence of child porn found on computer or phones of accused, court hears

No evidence of child pornography was found on the computer or phones of a local woman accused of providing photos of her young daughter to a man she met online, a city police detective confirmed Wednesday

There also wasn't an IP address, associated with her name, that had child porn on it, Det. Sgt.Jack Rice indicated on the third day of her trial.

The 35-year officer made that clear during cross-examination by defence lawyer Jessice Belisle.

Prior to that, he had outlined to the court how a Sault Ste. Marie Police Service forensic examiner wasn't able to access anything on the Samsung laptop seized by officers on Feb. 25, 2019 when officers executed a search warrant at the woman's residence.

Rice is a member of the technological crime unit and is in charge of child exploitation investigations.

He said he then asked the Greater Sudbury Police Service to examine it, and this examination also was unsuccessful.

The computer's hard drive also was examined by a third police service, as well as two forensic consulting firms.

One of the firms, an evidence retrieval company, was able to get 90 percent of the data, but it wasn't useful, and "the forensic examination of the hard drive was not successful," Rice said.

The woman pleaded not guilty earlier this week to making child pornography, possession of child pornography for the purpose of distributing/selling it and telecomunicating with someone to commit a sexual offence with a person under the age of 18.

The offences are alleged to have occurred between Jan.1, 2015 and Dec.31, 2017.

A court-ordered publication ban prohibits reporting any information that may identify the complainant.

On Wednesday, Superior Court Justice Annalisa Rasaiah also heard nothing was found on another computer in the home or on two cell phones.

The accused had indicated that she had sold the phone from the time of the allegations, and "we were never able to locate it," Rice said.

He did a videotaped interview with the woman on Feb. 25, but didn't arrest and charge her until May 21, 2019.

Rice said he had waited for the results of the searches of the laptop hard drive .

"It was was the first and only time I had to go that far with a hard drive," he told prosecutor Karen Pritchard. 

"I believed we had gone as far as we could, but I wanted to exhaust everything."

During cross-examination by Belisle, he agreed that he had enough evidence in February to arrest her client.

The defence suggested the only reason he didn't lay the charge on the day the search warrant was executed was because he wanted to get an inculpatory  statement from the woman.

"No, that's not correct,"  he replied.

Rice said he usually likes to see the digital evidence before going forward and needed time to get the bail brief together.

Belisle pointed out that he had initially told the woman she may be charged.

" You knew there would be charges. You were being deceitful when you said may be," she suggested.

"I wouldn't agree with that," the officer said.

The trial continues today with Rice returning to the witness stand for further cross-examination.