Julian Green, 45, of Torquay, was arrested last November after
police found the images of children on the hard drive of his
computer. Over the following 9 months he spent one night in police
cells, nine days in prison, lived in a bail hostel for three
months, and lost custody of his daughter and possession of his
house, both to his former wife.
With the help of Legal Aid, Mr Green was able to hire an expert
to examine the computer. The expert established that 11 Trojan
horse programs and one computer virus were present on the machine's
hard drive, and that these were most likely responsible for the
downloaded images.
A Trojan horse is a program that is installed onto a computer
without the owner's knowledge, usually by deceiving the owner about
what he or she is getting when opening an e-mail attachment or
downloading a file from the internet. Once installed, the Trojan
horse can carry out malicious acts such as destroying data or, as
in this case, downloading illegal material from the internet.
This is the second time that a Trojan horse has been successful
as a defence. In April this year, Karl Schofield of Whitley walked
free from court after prosecutors accepted that a Trojan horse was
infecting his PC and had downloaded child porn onto his
computer.
Mr Green told the Herald Express, "In cases like this it is not
innocent until proven guilty, you are treated as guilty until you
are proven innocent."
He continued, "All the time I was thinking I know 'I haven't
done it but how can I prove it and how did these things get
there'".
Mr Green added, "I certainly will not be having a computer in
the future. I am selling mine as soon as I get it back."
How to protect your home
computer
Just as with office systems, this case demonstrates how
important it can be to have up-to-date anti-virus software running
on your home computer. With a broadband connection, a firewall is
also essential. But the reason many individuals do not have these
protections is usually cost - which is the same reason that major
broadband providers do not bundle them as part of their
packages.
However, free firewall and anti-virus systems are available.
A free firewall that can detect and remove
Trojans is available from the Zone Alarm range of Zone Labs.
Free anti-virus software is offered by Grisoft, as version 6.0 of its
popular AVG Anti-Virus range. Click here for the
free download page.
Note: these downloads are for
non-commercial use only.
