Trojan Horse defence failed in two cases

CARL BEAME raises the issue of a Trojan Horse program, inadvertently downloaded from the internet, being responsible for the further downloading of child pornography without the computer owner’s knowledge or consent (Irish Examiner letters, May 21).

This defence has been entertained in two cases in Britain. The accused was acquitted in one of those cases, wrongly hailed as a victory by the self-styled computer expert who proposed the Trojan defence.

The prosecution withdrew the case because the history of the second-hand computer was impossible to verify: exclusive access to it by the accused could not be proven and the specific images on the computer could not be reliably linked with other prosecution evidence of internet activity.