Following a short trial this week, Leslie Thomas Bulpin (37) has been remanded in prison and was told he will be sentenced by the Royal Court for both offences in September.
The trial was unusual because normally the prosecution cannot mention the defendant’s previous criminal record. But, on this occasion, the Deputy Bailiff, Robert MacRae, presiding, gave Crown Advocate Richard Pedley permission to mention the ‘grooming’ incident because it was claimed it was essential to the prosecution argument.
Advocate Pedley highlighted to the court that only a matter of days separated Bulpin’s downloading of the images and contacting a teenager for sex, and that this indicated Bulpin had a propensity for such offences. Advocate Pedley further argued that the ‘grooming’ incident was proof that Bulpin had lied during a police interview about the images. He told officers he did ‘not have an interest in little girls’.
Advocate Adam Harrison, defending, told the court Bulpin did not have a general interest in young girls, and that the grooming incident was a one-off. He claimed his client had inadvertently download the 22-images after logging on to a legitimate pornographic site, and that because of his tech-ignorance was unaware they had been stored on his phone.
During the trial the court also heard evidence from States of Jersey Police digital forensic investigator, William Cloete, and a transcript of Bulpin’s police interview about the images was read out. Bulpin did not give evidence, and his defence team did not call any witnesses.
A great deal of the trial was taken up with legal debate centred around what is called mens rea – in simple terms the defendant’s intention when committing the crime. Advocate Harrison claimed Bulpin did not know that his searches on the legal porn site were likely to, or could, result in the downloading of indecent images of young children. But, Advocate Pedley, said this seemed unlikely given Bulpin had typed in the search ‘little girls’ on three separate occasions.
It took Jurats Collette Crill and Dr Gareth Hughes less than half an hour to return their guilty verdict. Bulpin is due to be sentenced on 4 September.
