An Abbotsford man has been found guilty of four of the seven child pornography offences with which he was charged in 2009.
Everett (Chipper) Block, 48, was convicted Tuesday of importing or distributing child porn, making child porn, and two counts of possessing child porn.
He was acquitted of three other charges – an additional count of importing, as well as accessing and transmitting child porn.
In his ruling in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster, Justice Austin Cullen said he was satisfied that Block was the person behind the offences, despite the defence's assertion that the evidence was circumstantial and someone else could have used the computer in question.
Block, a realtor, was charged after an officer with the Queensland Police Service in Australia posed online through the Yahoo! Messenger chat service as a person interested in child pornography.
Block responded, using the log-in name "Bob Johnson." He then sent the officer two photos of naked children and asked him if he liked the pictures.
He later forwarded a video showing an adult male engaged in sexual activity with a young girl.
Queensland Police traced the exchanges to a computer at Block's Abbotsford home, and notified Canadian authorities.
Abbotsford Police went to the residence on April 24, 2008, but only drove onto the property and then left. They later found out that their brief appearance had been captured on Block's home video surveillance camera.
Block was at home the next day when they returned with a search warrant and found four computers all missing their hard drives, which were never located.
A fifth older-model computer containing its hard drive was found in another area of the home, and police seized it.
Cullen said he believed that Block disposed of the four hard drives after seeing police on the surveillance video and realized they were likely coming back.
"In my view, the motive to remove the hard drives from the computers was the fear they would fall into the hands of the police."
Of the 12,000 images contained on the seized computer, an investigator recovered 219 of them, and found that about 40 constituted child pornography.
Also discovered were online chat sessions that Block had with other people in which their "role playing" involved explicit descriptions of sexual acts being performed with characters as young as nine.
Block was charged in August 2009. His sentencing hearing will be held at a later date.