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I guess I'm struggling with a) Computer technicians view photos and are distressed enough to call the police. b) Police view photos and believe it serious enoug

I guess I'm struggling with a) Computer technicians view photos and are distressed enough to call the police. b) Police view photos and believe it serious enough to press charges and prosecute. Yet the photos are simply of naked children playing in a back yard with a hose and buckets? And it was drop dead obvious to the Crown prosecutor upon first look but not at all to the shop technicians and police etc? The police were just gunning to go after an elderly man with a completely clean rap sheet? I suspect we're missing some key piece of this story - not surprising given the author.

DanBC 13y ago
Technicians don't have any context. They have no idea if these are his grandchildren and they're happy, or if these are his grandchildren and he's abusing them, or if these are his grandchildren and he's on the sex offender's register and prohibited from being anywhere near them. So, when they call police they're not saying "This guy is a paedophile, lock him up" they are saying "There might be a problem here, but we're not child protection experts and we don't have access to all the information, so please could you take a look?" It's very annoying that police totally overplayed this case, and that CPS didn't look at the images before taking it to court. But still, in general, you want people to report early and report often. The fight isn't against them, it's against overworked underfunded poorly trained social workers (many of whom are fucking idiots) and overly aggressive police forces. What is totally baffling to me is to contrast this case (naked children on a drive; arrest and prosecution) and the child grooming gang cases (14 year old girls telling police that they were being gang raped, drugged, forced into prostitution, and police not doing anything and child protection social services telling the family that a child working as a prostitute was a "lifestyle choice". We must do something to stop abuses of the system like that, but we must also make sure innocent people don't end up in court needlessly. Especially because, as the blog says, access to legal aid is getting tricky and barristers are expensive.
- jbooth 13y ago
  There were opportunities for discretion at every step of this process. A bunch of kids running around in the backyard naked happens all the freakin time. Used to be more often. The technicians could have exercised common sense. The police could have exercised common sense. The police could have refrained from writing up a description of the photos that appears to have no correlation with the actual photos. Ultimately, the problem is with metrics, police want easy cases to bump the stats, and that's what they're incentivized for. That's the problem at the root of most excesses in the drug war as well.
- leephillips 13y ago
  I would advocate making what the repair technicians did a criminal offense. They should be obligated to treat the contents of the drives as confidential unless they are clearly evidence of a crime. And it is quite suspicious that they were examining images at all.
  - jusben1369 13y ago
    Good Lord really? Think that through. It's like a pedophiles greatest wish come true "IF you bring something to the attention of authorities and it proves baseless we will criminally prosecute you"
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - leephillips 13y ago
      I understand that there is a tradeoff. There always is. But there is plenty of precedent in other occupations, where practitioners are expected to keep information that they come across confidential - sometimes with civil, sometimes with criminal liability. I'd prefer to live in a world where, if I took a laptop into the shop to get it fixed (not that I would ever do such a thing), I know that I don't need to worry about the technicians spreading the contents of my hard drive around unless they are pretty damned sure they have no choice. I want there to be a serious disincentive. This does not protect anyone who has real child porn.
- ErrantX 13y ago
  All true. But. In my time as a computer forensics investigator in the UK I never saw a case like this. That's not to say errors were made (don't get me started) but I am very cautious about this particular tale. For example, there is no way that the computer would not have been subjected to a full analysis, by experts. The CPS simply will not prosecute without this, period. Any competent analyst would have seen the obvious truth, and the report would have reflected that. The CPS actually is very very cautious in charging for CP cases when there is only a little or dubious evidence - without supporting evidence of the user searching for and downloading material stuff graded level 1 will not make it to court. I guess some critical process failed (I'm assuming the story is entirely true as told), which I think is horrific, but I don't think it reflects what happens all the time. I guess "Exhibit A" at no point said "I only have images of my grandchildren on there, from holiday", or similar, and the police assumed (totally understandable!) denial mean't the images were dodgy - that's a horrible failing. What does need to be exposed is how any reasonable claim of CP possession (e.g. by a relative or whatever) will mean an automatic investigation, suspicion, and often seizure of your computers. The number of cases I worked through which were total negatives is depressing (although not a massive percentage, maybe 3-5%, it still feels we could do better).
leephillips 13y ago
I don't find the story hard to believe at all. There have been several prominent cases very closely resembling this story reported in the US, so I'm not surprised that these things can happen in the culturally similar UK. Some of the stories also involved repair technicians working on a laptop; some involved workers at photo shops, back when people still took their film in for development. Some of the people being prosecuted had taken pictures of clothed children in public, but the police judged that the photographs were dirty. I realize this comment would be more useful with links, but I don't have the time right now.
nitrogen 13y ago
I suspect we're missing some key piece of this story... I find this (extremely common) attitude rather distressing. People are all too eager to believe that the authorities are always right, and when presented with a case showing the contrary, they assume "we're missing some key piece of [the] story."
- jusben1369 13y ago
  Nitrogen. How often do you feel comfortable completely believing something you read on the Internet when it's from a single data source that is emotionally linked to the case and advocating an agenda as part of the story?
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    Jusben1369. As often as it takes to counteract the significant bias in favor of the overly powerful voice of the status quo. Or, if you prefer a less hyperbolic response, there's a difference between healthy critical skepticism and skepticism biased in favor of a presupposed belief. I'm not accusing you of the latter, just pointing out that it is disappointingly common.
    - jusben1369 13y ago
      My objection was to the one sided nature of the content vs having something a little more balanced. Individuals and powerful organizations are both prone to that. It was coming from a default assumption that the State was right.
      - nitrogen 13y ago
        Assuming that you meant, "It wasn't coming," that sounds reasonable. Restated, my general complaint is that, in general (not necessarily on HN), people are more likely to say "there must be more to the story" if the accused is portrayed as even moderately sympathetic than if the accused is painted as scum. In other words, prosecutors and police are given the benefit of the doubt more frequently than those they target.

DanBC 13y ago

Technicians don't have any context. They have no idea if these are his grandchildren and they're happy, or if these are his grandchildren and he's abusing them, or if these are his grandchildren and he's on the sex offender's register and prohibited from being anywhere near them. So, when they call police they're not saying "This guy is a paedophile, lock him up" they are saying "There might be a problem here, but we're not child protection experts and we don't have access to all the information, so please could you take a look?" It's very annoying that police totally overplayed this case, and that CPS didn't look at the images before taking it to court. But still, in general, you want people to report early and report often. The fight isn't against them, it's against overworked underfunded poorly trained social workers (many of whom are fucking idiots) and overly aggressive police forces. What is totally baffling to me is to contrast this case (naked children on a drive; arrest and prosecution) and the child grooming gang cases (14 year old girls telling police that they were being gang raped, drugged, forced into prostitution, and police not doing anything and child protection social services telling the family that a child working as a prostitute was a "lifestyle choice". We must do something to stop abuses of the system like that, but we must also make sure innocent people don't end up in court needlessly. Especially because, as the blog says, access to legal aid is getting tricky and barristers are expensive.

jbooth 13y ago
There were opportunities for discretion at every step of this process. A bunch of kids running around in the backyard naked happens all the freakin time. Used to be more often. The technicians could have exercised common sense. The police could have exercised common sense. The police could have refrained from writing up a description of the photos that appears to have no correlation with the actual photos. Ultimately, the problem is with metrics, police want easy cases to bump the stats, and that's what they're incentivized for. That's the problem at the root of most excesses in the drug war as well.
leephillips 13y ago
I would advocate making what the repair technicians did a criminal offense. They should be obligated to treat the contents of the drives as confidential unless they are clearly evidence of a crime. And it is quite suspicious that they were examining images at all.
- jusben1369 13y ago
  Good Lord really? Think that through. It's like a pedophiles greatest wish come true "IF you bring something to the attention of authorities and it proves baseless we will criminally prosecute you"
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - leephillips 13y ago
    I understand that there is a tradeoff. There always is. But there is plenty of precedent in other occupations, where practitioners are expected to keep information that they come across confidential - sometimes with civil, sometimes with criminal liability. I'd prefer to live in a world where, if I took a laptop into the shop to get it fixed (not that I would ever do such a thing), I know that I don't need to worry about the technicians spreading the contents of my hard drive around unless they are pretty damned sure they have no choice. I want there to be a serious disincentive. This does not protect anyone who has real child porn.
ErrantX 13y ago
All true. But. In my time as a computer forensics investigator in the UK I never saw a case like this. That's not to say errors were made (don't get me started) but I am very cautious about this particular tale. For example, there is no way that the computer would not have been subjected to a full analysis, by experts. The CPS simply will not prosecute without this, period. Any competent analyst would have seen the obvious truth, and the report would have reflected that. The CPS actually is very very cautious in charging for CP cases when there is only a little or dubious evidence - without supporting evidence of the user searching for and downloading material stuff graded level 1 will not make it to court. I guess some critical process failed (I'm assuming the story is entirely true as told), which I think is horrific, but I don't think it reflects what happens all the time. I guess "Exhibit A" at no point said "I only have images of my grandchildren on there, from holiday", or similar, and the police assumed (totally understandable!) denial mean't the images were dodgy - that's a horrible failing. What does need to be exposed is how any reasonable claim of CP possession (e.g. by a relative or whatever) will mean an automatic investigation, suspicion, and often seizure of your computers. The number of cases I worked through which were total negatives is depressing (although not a massive percentage, maybe 3-5%, it still feels we could do better).

leephillips 13y ago

I don't find the story hard to believe at all. There have been several prominent cases very closely resembling this story reported in the US, so I'm not surprised that these things can happen in the culturally similar UK. Some of the stories also involved repair technicians working on a laptop; some involved workers at photo shops, back when people still took their film in for development. Some of the people being prosecuted had taken pictures of clothed children in public, but the police judged that the photographs were dirty. I realize this comment would be more useful with links, but I don't have the time right now.

nitrogen 13y ago

I suspect we're missing some key piece of this story... I find this (extremely common) attitude rather distressing. People are all too eager to believe that the authorities are always right, and when presented with a case showing the contrary, they assume "we're missing some key piece of [the] story."

jusben1369 13y ago
Nitrogen. How often do you feel comfortable completely believing something you read on the Internet when it's from a single data source that is emotionally linked to the case and advocating an agenda as part of the story?
- nitrogen 13y ago
  Jusben1369. As often as it takes to counteract the significant bias in favor of the overly powerful voice of the status quo. Or, if you prefer a less hyperbolic response, there's a difference between healthy critical skepticism and skepticism biased in favor of a presupposed belief. I'm not accusing you of the latter, just pointing out that it is disappointingly common.
  - jusben1369 13y ago
    My objection was to the one sided nature of the content vs having something a little more balanced. Individuals and powerful organizations are both prone to that. It was coming from a default assumption that the State was right.
    - nitrogen 13y ago
      Assuming that you meant, "It wasn't coming," that sounds reasonable. Restated, my general complaint is that, in general (not necessarily on HN), people are more likely to say "there must be more to the story" if the accused is portrayed as even moderately sympathetic than if the accused is painted as scum. In other words, prosecutors and police are given the benefit of the doubt more frequently than those they target.