A repeat sex offender is back in jail because his computer alerted authorities when he went online to search for child pornography.
When 53-year-old Langley resident Robert Deeley bought a laptop from a second-hand store, he didn’t know the computer was stolen, or that the previous owner had equipped it with anti-theft software that would alert a security service the moment it went online.
The tracking software would automatically trace the location of the laptop and record how it was being used by capturing screen shots and keystrokes.
When Deeley connected his new computer to the internet in December, 2013, the computer alerted the security service, located in Delta.
When people at the service realized Deeley was using the laptop to access and view child pornography, they contacted the Delta police department, which obtained a search warrant and raided Deeley’s home in January, 2014.
They found 30 images of child pornography on the computer.
Deeley, who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography, was sentenced to two years less a day in prison, followed by three years of probation with a curfew and several conditions including a ban against contact with any one under the age of 16.
Details of the case were disclosed during a Surrey Provincial Court sentencing hearing in May of this year.
A transcript of the oral decision, delivered in open court, shows a Forensic Psychiatric Services assessment declared Deeley to have “multiple pedophilias and a combination of personality disorders” that make him “a high risk for sexual offence recidivism.”
However, the assessment also said that Deeley was “capable of compliance under appropriate supervision and with strong external controls in place.”
Deeley has multiple prior convictions on sex-related charges, including a 1993 conviction for sexual interference of a person under the age of 16, when he was sentenced to six months in jail plus three months probation.
In 1996, Deeley was designated a dangerous offender after he was convicted of sexual assault with a weapon, break and enter and theft. He was sentenced to five years.
In 2005, Deeley was convicted of possession of child pornography and sentenced to two years in jail and three years of probation.
When he finished serving that sentence in 2007, Langley RCMP issued a public warning that Deeley was planning to live in the Willowbrook area and that he was a designated dangerous offender who was considered “a risk to re-offend against all females, including sexual assault.”
The police published his photo and advised residents to report Deeley if he was seen violating his many probation restrictions.
At the May sentencing, Surrey Provincial Court Judge James Sutherland noted that Deeley has sought treatment for his addiction to underage pornography, “and he has taken steps to curtail it pharmaceutically, as well.”
Judge Sutherland said the sentence of two years less a day, as recommended by both the defence and prosecution, would allow Deeley to continue treatment in a provincial prison to help him “to control his behavior when he is inevitably released from jail back into the community.”
A sentence of more than two years would land the convicted offender in federal prison, where he would be unable to continue his current course of treatment and which would “eliminate the possibility of probation and eliminate the eternal controls that Mr. Deeley needs,” the judge said.