Trial underway for Mountie facing child porn charges

The first day of former RCMP officer Aiden Pratchett’s trial on child pornography charges laid the ground work for the rest of the trial.

Const. Chris Lair of the Prince Albert Police Service, assigned to the Saskatchewan Internet Child Exploitation Unit (ICE) in Fond-du-Lac, took the stand in the morning and afternoon. He was the lead investigator in the case against Pratchett.

In the morning, Lair explained to the court how Sask. ICE monitors the traffic of child pornography, and how they find suspects. Illegal traffic on Pratchett’s IP address was flagged from Sept. 29 to Oct. 15, 2014.

During the afternoon portion, the Crown presented video of Pratchett during his first detention, while officers investigated and secured his computer equipment. In the video Pratchett spoke to Lair, the investigators on Lair’s team, and his girlfriend Sarah. Lair tells Pratchett in the video that he is “100 per cent confident” the illegal material was obtained from Pratchett’s house.

In the video, Pratchett maintains his innocence, suggesting that it was a third-party using his Wi-Fi.

A point of contention between Pratchett and Lair in the video is Pratchett’s refusal to give up the passwords for his computer. Pratchett’s girlfriend said, his computer is “locked like Fort Knox.”

In the video Pratchett declines to give investigators his personal password on the grounds that his personal information, including banking records, is on that computer.

Pratchett was arrested on Dec. 22, 2014 on the charges of accessing child pornography and possession of child pornography. Pratchett’s family and his council declined to comment. The Crown simply stated, “It was too early” to tell how the trial was going.

The trial is expected to last the week.