JOHN SMITH OF RUGBY JAILED FOR CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CLAIMING RUSSIAN HACKERS FRAMED HIM
In August 2017, John Smith, a 68-year-old resident of Rugby, Warwickshire, was sentenced to prison after attempting to claim he was framed for possessing child abuse images.Smith argued that he had been falsely accused and that Russian hackers had planted the illegal material on his computer, asserting, “I’m not giving in to hackers.
They’ve hacked into my email address, a chap in Russia.” Police seized Smith’s computer last year and discovered he had stored a horrifying collection of incestuous child abuse videos and over a hundred images of naked young girls.
The files, with disturbing names such as "10yo daughter with dad" and "11yo f***** by daddy," were downloaded via peer-to-peer file sharing.
During a pre-trial hearing at Coventry Crown Court, Smith initially denied making seven counts of creating indecent images of children but later changed his pleas at a Trial of Issue on August 4.
In his testimony, he claimed that he had only been downloading harmless files like music or drivers and had no sexual interest in children.
He maintained that whenever he encountered something “abhorrent,” he would transfer it to another drive and delete it, explaining, “Because I’m not giving into hackers.” He further alleged that his email had been compromised by hackers from Russia, and that they had used his device to plant the illegal content.
The court, however, found no evidence that an external entity had taken control of his computer.
Detective Constable John Cook from West Mercia Police’s high-tech crime unit stated, “The movies had explicit file names, from which it would be apparent they related to sexual activity with children.
I found no evidence in the data that any person took control of that computer and used its functions from an external source.” Smith used a program called Evidence Eliminator to delete some of the illegal files.
Judge verdict saw him sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years.
Detective Cook commented on the case, saying, “The fact that you engaged in this behaviour indicates at the very least that you had some form of sexual interest in children.”
