The trial began on Monday in B.C. Supreme Court in Chilliwack for an Abbotsford man accused of sexual offences against two boys under the age of 10.
The man, whose name is under a publication ban that protects the boys' identities, pleaded not guilty to all eight charges.
Seven of those relate to alleged offences against one boy, and include making child porn, distributing child porn, two counts of sexual interference, two counts of invitation to sexual touching, and possession of child porn.
The eighth charge – sexual interference – is in relation to an alleged offence committed against the boy's older brother.
The offences are alleged to have occurred sometime between October 2005 and April 2011.
In her opening statement, Crown counsel Sylvia Domaradzki said the boys and their mother were living with the accused at the time "as a family."
She said the accused came onto police radar in January 2010 following a child porn investigation in Australia.
Authorities there discovered that a man in North Dakota had received two child porn videos – showing a man and a young boy – through an online Yahoo account.
Computers were seized from the man's home, and investigators obtained the Yahoo ID that had sent the videos.
Further investigation traced the sender of the videos to a computer in Abbotsford, and the matter was turned over to local police and the RCMP's Integrated Child Exploitation Unit.
The accused, 60, was arrested in the residence on April 28, 2011, and the two boys were removed and placed in foster care.
Police executed a search warrant at the home the following day and seized items that included two laptop computers, a computer tower, severals CDs and a grey bathrobe.
Domaradzki said analysis of the seized computers and the CDs turned up two videos and several photos that fall under the Criminal Code category of child pornography.
The younger boy was identified as the child in the videos. The older boy later provided statements to police that led to the eighth charge, Domaradzki said.
A voir dire (trial within a trial) will be held later this week to determine whether a video- and audiotaped statement that the accused provided to police after his arrest was given voluntarily and can be used as evidence.
Also this week, the older boy is expected to testify via closed-circuit TV.
The trial is expected to last 10 days.