April 18, 2011 Ottawa Sun
U.S. computer programmer acquitted on kid porn raps
by Tony Spears
Ottawa Sun
An American man caught with child porn images and erotic kiddie lit at the Ottawa airport was acquitted Monday of importing and possessing child pornography.
Judge Maria Linhares de Sousa said she had a reasonable doubt that John Bird, 53, knew that 213 kiddie porn images were on USB drives that contained about 416,000 images of adult pornography when border agents stopped him on Oct. 13, 2008.
The illegal images included anime and computer-generated depictions. There were also a range of child abuse and incest stories, about a dozen of which Linhares de Sousa said met the definition of child pornography.
Bird, an inventer, said he was trying to design blocking software that would help Internet Service Providers and home users screen out child porn. He downloaded the porn in massive chunks and hadn’t reviewed all of the images.
The court heard he needed images and data “as close as possible to what one is seeking to block.”
“One may question Mr. Bird’s judgement,” Linhares de Sousa said. “However that bad judgement, on the facts of this case, does not amount to culpable intention.” Border agents found the USB drives when searching Bird and his wife at the Ottawa airport. He had forgotten to replace them in his bedroom safe after taking them on vacation.
Agents found an image of a prepubescent girl administering oral sex.
The file was referred to OPP, who also submitted a selection of stories to the court. With titles like “A furtive intrusion,” and “The seduction of Charlotte, my housekeeper’s daughter,” the tales ranged from sadistic rape scenarios to more tender accounts of child-adult sex.
Outside the court, a relieved Bird pledged to forge ahead with the development of the software, which was inspired when someone close to him was victimized by a man targeting 12 to 14 year old girls online.
“This is something I needed to do for other kids,” he said.
Bird, joined in court by members of his family, will return to his New Hampshire home. U.S. cops have already tossed it, finding nothing, Bird said.
Had his own software been operational, Bird said it could have saved him from prosecution by deleting the child porn images he accidentally downloaded.
Bird suggested he might contact the OPP computer forensic officer who catalogued his porn collection, noting Canada’s more restrictive pornography laws would provide “a good proving ground for our technology.”
“I would certainly recommend that this type of work, in the future, be done a bit differently,” he added.