A MAN who planted child pornography on a colleague's computer in the hope he could oust him from his job, leaving him free to climb the ranks, has today (Wednesday) been convicted.
Neil Weiner, 49,, an assistant premises manager, of Rainham Road North, Dagenham, was found guilty by a majority verdict of 11-1 at the Central Criminal Court for two offences of possessing indecent images of children and attempting to pervert the course of justice
He is due to be sentenced at the same court on 23 September.
On 31 July 2006 police received an anonymous call from an alleged 'concerned member of public' regarding a colleague at a Tower Hamlets school where he also worked. He claimed the individual in question had child pornography on his laptop computer.
The informant declined to give a name for the suspect but said he had already downloaded some of the images from his computer without his knowledge in order to pass them onto police. A Jiffy bag containing a disc featuring indecent images of children was subsequently sent to officers at Tower Hamlets.
An investigation was launched by detectives and on 25 October a search warrant was executed at the address of a 62-year-old man. A quantity of discs and a laptop were recovered from the property. Neither contained any incriminating material.
A laptop found to contain 177 indecent images of children was, however, recovered from a locked filing cabinet at the school where the man worked.
The man denied any knowledge of the images but was arrested that day on suspicion of possession of indecent images of children under 18 and taken to Limehouse police station where he was interviewed.
He told officers he believed someone at work "had it in for him" and wanted him removed from his job.
Forensic analysis failed to find any evidence the man was aware of the incriminating files existence, or that he had ever opened them. As a result, on 23 April 2007 he was released with no further action.
Further inquiries were conducted by officers in an attempt to try and identify the source of the original call into police. The caller, despite remaining anonymous, had left a mobile number with officers and detectives established that the SIM card for the phone had been placed within a contract handset registered to Weiner - who was indeed a colleague of the previously arrested man. On 4 July Weiner was arrested in connection with the investigation.
In August statements were taken from two women who claimed Weiner had informed them he was planning to put 'kiddy porn' on the computer of a colleague in order to get him arrested and fired from his job.
The court heard how Weiner had used his IT knowledge as a ruse to gain access to the victim's computer; offering to assist if there was a technical problem and noting the password in the process.
Officers believe he gained access to the laptop when no one else was around and planted the images on the hard drive. However he slipped up when there was no trace of the images he originally sent to police on the machine.
Weiner was subsequently charged on 29 October 2009.