Former Anglican priest and convicted child sex offender Robin Barrett has been acquitted of child pornography charges.
Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Vikas Khladkar ruled that the majority of evidence against Barrett, 58, was inadmissible after police breached his rights.
The court heard this morning that investigators executed a search warrant on Barrett's Anchorage Road, Conception Bay South home in July 2015. Before the search began, and after Barrett had indicated he wanted to speak to a lawyer, one of the officers asked Barrett a question about the alleged offence, thereby breaching his rights.
As a result, none of the evidence seized after that point was admissible, and Barrett was acquitted of charges of distributing, accessing and possessing child pornography.
It wasn’t Barrett's first time charged with child pornography offences. In 2010, he pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child pornography after police found 31,460 images and 3,451 videos of the material on his computer data, some depicting children as young as six months old. He was sentenced to 2.5 years in jail and named to the national sex offender registry for 20 years.
More to come.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
