A Penticton man was found guilty on May 30 of possessing more than 300 images of child sexual abuse.
Christopher Donald Vern Davis, born in 1990, came to the attention of police after reports of two Twitter accounts in his name which had accessed the illegal material.
In total, 369 images and a video were recovered from a cell phone seized from Davis, with additional thumbnails recovered that matched files uploaded to Twitter that contained child sexual abuse material.
Seven witnesses testified in the case, including RCMP and their Integrated Child Exploitation (ICE) experts.
The judge found claims by the defence, that someone else could have used the phone, were not believable enough.
“Witnesses who lived with him during the relevant time testified that he not only had his phone with him, no one else was allowed to use the phone. In fact, no one else was seen by any of the witnesses to have used it,” said the judge. “And he would spend lengthy periods of time alone in the storage area that served as his room and he always had his phone with him.”
The first Twitter account was opened in December 2019, and was shut down by Twitter in January 2020, after it was flagged by the company. A second Twitter account was created in March of that year with it being closed in May. Both accounts were accessed repeatedly from the IP address that matched the location Davis was living in at the time.
A tablet was also seized by the RCMP but no material was found on it, however, it did provide evidence to support that it was Davis who created and accessed the two Twitter accounts.
Davis will return to Penticton court at a later date to be sentenced. In addition to the regular presentencing report, a psychological report was also requested to be prepared.
If you have information about child sexual exploitation, visit the Cybertip Canada website.
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