World News
Sentencing hearing reviews scope of bishop's pornography collection
Published: August 4, 2011
OTTAWA, Ontario (CNS) -- Defense lawyers tried to show during a sentencing hearing for Bishop Raymond Lahey that the cleric's collection of child pornography was smaller, less sophisticated and considered less hard-core than others examined by investigators. Ottawa Police Detective Andrew Thompson said during the Aug. 4 hearing that the former bishop of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, had a smaller collection of pornography than some he had investigated. Thompson discovered 588 images of child pornography, 60 videos and a file containing fictional stories on the bishop's laptop and other devices in September 2009 at the airport in Ottawa. Bishop Lahey pleaded guilty May 5 to a charge of possession of child pornography for importation stemming from his arrest at the airport. While Thompson testified that many of Bishop Lahey's images were considered "soft-core," showing adolescent boys in nude poses, he stressed some were "quite graphic" and included "torture and stuff like that." An expert in child pornography investigations and computer forensics, Thompson admitted he has seen more offensive pornography than those in the bishop's collection, but that some of the cleric's worst images "were right up there. The explicit images of torture are disturbing," he said.
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