Former teacher's child porn case before Supreme Court

The case of Sudbury high school computer teacher, Richard Cole, is now before the Supreme Court of Canada.

Cole was charged with possessing child pornography after nude photos of a 16-year-old Grade 10 student were found on his school-issued laptop. Cole's responsibilities included patrolling students' emails and files. At the time, the Crown alleged Cole had found a large cache of nude photographs, and copied them onto his own hard drive, only to have them discovered by a school board technician.

Cole was acquitted of the charges by the Ontario Court of Justice in March 2011, which ruled Greater Sudbury Police Service had infringed on his charter of rights, specifically his reasonable expectation of privacy.

The court deemed the methods of police searching “intrusive,” and overturned a previous pre-trial ruling that tossed out evidence supporting Cole's defence.

The Ontario Court of Appeal later ordered a new trial, ruling some of the images obtained on Cole's laptop were admissible. According to media reports, the Crown is hoping the Supreme Court will allow all images to be entered as evidence.

Posted by Mark Gentili