The trial for a man charged with child pornography offences won’t continue, since he has decided to change his plea to guilty.
Military veteran Douglas Noseworthy is charged with accessing and possessing child pornography.
When his case is called in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in St. John’s Thursday morning, he is expected to enter a guilty plea, and an agreed statement of facts is set to be presented.
Noseworthy had argued that police had breached his rights when he was arrested in the fall of 2016, and asked Justice Carl Thompson to throw out statements he had made to police, as well as evidence seized as the result of a search warrant.
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The arresting police officer hadn’t immediately allowed him to contact a lawyer, he argued, and his lawyer, Mark Gruchy, told the court the circumstances of his client’s arrest at his workplace and the fact that he was handcuffed at the time he was read his rights contributed to him being too overwhelmed to understand the information given to him.
Noseworthy said he had only responded “yes” to the questions the officer asked him so he could “have it all over with.”
Last week, Thompson rejected those arguments and dismissed Noseworthy’s application to have evidence excluded.
Police investigators had a warrant to search Noseworthy’s home for computer data when they visited him at work on Oct. 6, 2016, and arrested him. He told the officers they would find what they were looking for on his laptop at his home, and they did: 61 images of child pornography.
