Christopher Rowe

Christopher Rowe was convicted of possessing an indecent image of a child. Police officers with a warrant visited the home where Rowe lived with his parents and searched the premises. They sieced twenty floppy disks from Rowe’s bedroom, eight of which contained deleted files containing images of child pornography. Rowe maintained that he had never knowingly accessed a child porongraphy site and had never bought floppy disks, although he did use them. He said he had no idea where the images came from. The defence expert noted that there was no evidence that the images had been viewed by Rowe. On appeal, evidence was presented to suggest that the specialist software required to undelete the files was not on Rowe’s computer. It was shown many of the images had been deleted before the date specified on the indictment. The convictions relating to the deleted images were quashed on the basis of this evidence. The remainins convictions were also quashed on the basis that a full and comprehensive direction on the significance of the deleted files was not given to the jury, and if it had been they might have entertained reservations about guilt on the remaining charges .