Update: Middleton phone records queried
The trial will continue in March next year.
SUSPECTED paedophile Dave Middleton has been granted permission to visit his ailing father and do maintenance on his South Coast home over the Christmas period.
However, the court has ordered that the former senior traffic officer should inform investigator Lieutenant Mandla Cele exactly when he was planning to be in town.
Middleton is currently out on bail, but his bail conditions stated that, inter alia, he is not allowed on the South Coast in between court appearances.
The trial – which involves 35 sex-related charges – was postponed to March 7.
The case only resumed on Thursday as Middleton’s legal representative, Advocate Jimmy Howse, did not arrive after undergoing an operation on Wednesday.
Two police officers testified about the digital evidence retrieved from Mr Middleton’s home on September 9, 2013.
Captain Ajith Jaganath, who is attached to the forensic laboratory based at the provincial office of SAPS, was part of the team which searched and seized CDs, laptops and two computer towers.
“The examination of this material didn’t reveal anything incriminating,” he said.
Lieutenant-Colonel Aubrey Mayimela assisted in seizing, downloading and presenting all digital forensic evidence.
The court also went through photographs downloaded on cellphones and heard that two photographs were possibly taken by a different device and transferred to Mr Middleton’s iPhone.
Lt-Col Mayimela said that two of the three Nokia phones that were analysed contained no evidence relating to the case.
However, evidence in the form of multi-media messages (MMS) was retrieved from the third phone, a Nokia 5230.
When court resumed on Friday, Lt-Col Mayimela confirmed that the photos had been sent from the iPhone to the Nokia.
Advocate Howse spent most of Friday morning cross-examining Lt-Col Mayimela about cellphone records and the state-of-the-art software (known as XRY) which was used to download information from Middleton’s mobile devices.
Advocate Howse questioned whether the software disclosed if the image was actually taken by the phone or captured from a computer/camera or another device.
“The software doesn’t tell us what has been added or subtracted to a photo. All we see is the final product downloaded,” said Mr Howse.
Lt-Col Mayimela disagreed, saying that the software did in fact indicate if anything had been added.
Advocate Howse queried where this was shown in the court’s print-out copies and further suggested that the original image could have been modified before it was transferred to the phone.
“You can put anything on the photo… a border, hearts, etc,” said Lt-Col Mayimela.
Lt-Col Mayimela later explained that Mr Middleton’s phone did not give the GPS co-ordinates so they were unable to determine where precisely the photo was taken.
