Child porn found at 405 local Internet addresses  

Detective illustrates scope of problem during sentencing of one offender  

Ottawa Citizen

 20 January 2010

By Andrew Seymour, The Ottawa Citizen

  OTTAWA — More than 400 unique Ottawa-based IP addresses were offering child pornography images over file sharing programs in the last month, Toronto police Det. Const. Christopher Purchas told an Ottawa court Tuesday.

He was speaking during the sentencing hearing for Stéphane Durocher, an Ottawa-area man who pleaded guilty in June to two counts of possessing child pornography.

The testimony has provided a rare snapshot of Ottawa’s Internet child pornography community.

Purchas first showed the court a large Google Earth map of Canada covered in red dots, each representing “hubs” of hundreds of IP addresses identified as being available to share child pornography online.

He testified that 405 IP addresses in Ottawa alone had made child pornography available in the past 30 days.

At least 10 of those addresses had gone online more than 28 times, Purchas said, or an average of nearly once per day.

The busiest IP address had gone online 193 times in the past month, he said.

“It signifies (that) that IP address responded to a search … indicating it was open for business to a request for child pornography,” said Purchas, a member of the Toronto police child exploitation unit who goes undercover online to hunt for people who possess and distribute child pornography.

The Crown is seeking to have Durocher, who also has two 1993 convictions for sexual assault, declared a long-term offender who would be subject to strict supervision upon his release from custody.

One of the sexual assaults was on a 12-year-old child while the other involved an attack that took place on an Ottawa bike path.

Durocher, 36, also has a 1995 conviction for breaking into a house where he stole pornographic adult videos and magazines. He also masturbated inside the home before taking the items.

The Crown called the evidence in an effort to show the scope of the problem of the downloading and sharing of child pornography in Ottawa and Canada. It is believed to be the first time in Ontario a child pornography expert has testified during the sentencing phase of the criminal court process.

While police software is able to narrow down the exact IP addresses of people sharing child pornography online, Purchas said police efforts to combat child pornography are like “attempting to take down a mountain with a chisel.”

Police don’t have the resources to identify and arrest people at each individual IP address, Purchas said.

Instead, officers look at a number of factors, including the number of images being traded, to determine which people to target, he said.

Ontario Court Justice Richard Lajoie, who will ultimately decide Durocher’s sentence, questioned why the Crown would call the evidence, since it didn’t directly relate to Durocher’s case.

“You are preaching to the converted. We all know (child pornography) is a problem. We all know there is more and more of these cases coming into our courts,” said Lajoie. “What else can be said?”

“Mr. Durocher is part of a very large problem. That’s why I’m calling this evidence,” said Tim Wightman.

aseymour@thecitizen.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen