Canada

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Jury not told about online searches, porn

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 05/11/2012 1:00 AM

LONDON, Ont. -- A laptop computer belonging to the man accused of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing Victoria Stafford was used to search online for "real underage rape" and "nude preteen" not long before the eight-year-old was abducted, court documents indicate.

But the jury in Michael Rafferty's trial -- now sequestered and deciding his fate -- doesn't know it, along with a number of other facts the court deemed inadmissible.

The Crown contends Rafferty also downloaded "substantial" amounts of child pornography, and there was evidence of snuff films -- movies depicting real killings -- on his laptop. A woman he met online alleged that he drugged, choked and raped her. A litany of past dates reported he had a penchant for sexual choking. Some even complained of his "disconcerting" behaviour toward their children.

The jury doesn't know that, either.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Heeney refused to allow evidence found on Rafferty's laptop and BlackBerry -- the searches, the evidence of child porn and a downloaded movie about Karla Homolka -- because the search violated Rafferty's charter rights.

When police legally searched Rafferty's car and found the two devices, they should have obtained another search warrant to examine their contents, Heeney ruled -- even though at the time there was no binding authority upon them to do so.

The first court decision to spell out a secondary search warrant is necessary under such circumstances wasn't released until several weeks after investigators began poring through Rafferty's laptop.

But while police honestly believed they had the authority to search Rafferty's devices and were "doing the best they could in the face of extremely difficult circumstances," Heeney concluded they took a careless risk in not getting a secondary warrant.

The laptop was not going anywhere, Heeney said, so police had time to draft another search-warrant request, which could have specified what they were looking for on the computer.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 11, 2012 A16