AN AMERICAN porn star is to give evidence on behalf of a
British Army major who has been charged in Belfast with possession
of child pornography.
The officer, who is serving in Northern Ireland, is accused of
having a picture of the rape of an underage girl stored on his
laptop computer.
Melissa Bertsch from Los Angeles, whose stage name is Melissa
Ashley, has given statements to the officer’s solicitor certifying
that the image is of her and that she was over 20 years of age
when it was taken.
Bertsch, whose film credits include Babysitter Training and
Extreme Schoolgirls, said: “I am willing to travel to Belfast if
needs be. I am always willing to help out a fan.”
Bertsch is now 26 but still looks like a young girl, a fact her
agent puts down to “good genetics”. She made a career in the porn
industry after her 20th birthday and frequently poses in school
uniforms.
The image was discovered in a raid on the major’s Northern
Ireland home by military police last year. Three computers were
seized but the only suspicious image located was of Bertsch.
If found guilty the major faces up to five years in jail under
the terms of the Protection of Children Act 1978. He is charged
with possessing a “level four” image, the second highest on the
scale.
Lewis Cherry, his solicitor, is hopeful the case will be
dropped once Bertsch’s evidence about her age is put to the court.
Cherry says his client was caught up in Operation Ore, a police
operation against child pornography. It was launched in April 2002
after the US Postal Inspection Service handed over credit-card
details of 6,500 British citizens who had paid for access to a web
portal, Landslide, which gave them access to about 300 internet
sites, some of which allegedly carried images of child abuse.
So far 3,800 people have been arrested and 102 children — some
as young as two — rescued from paedophiles in cities, including
Belfast. Pete Townshend, the former guitarist with the Who, was
the most high-profile name to emerge on the Operation Ore list.
Some 33 men have committed suicide rather than face the courts.
Cherry believes he has uncovered a flaw in police methodology.
“Already her (Bertsch’s) image has come up in another case where I
am representing an RAF officer,” he said. “The site from which
these images were downloaded does not purport to offer child
pornography; it states that it is entirely legal.
“This raises the question whether, in other cases, people have
been sent to jail and had their lives ruined for having pictures
of this woman or another adult actress.”
The American porn industry is tightly regulated and actors must
prove their age to a custodian of record whose details are
available on internet sites.
Cherry said: “I was able to track this woman down purely on the
basis of following links given in an overprint on the image my
client had on his computer. This was information that was
available to the police.”
Bertsch has already given proof of her age in five American
prosecutions. “I once flew to Hawaii and testified in front of a
jury and a judge,” she said. “They dropped all the charges after I
testified. In the other cases they dropped everything once I made
a statement and provided proof of my ID.”
John Carr, an internet safety adviser for the children’s
charity NCH, says there is an argument for creating a database of
adult performers, but he believes it would be wrong to put the
onus on police to prove the age of a person in a pornographic
picture before bringing a prosecution.
“The chances of finding out the identity of children being
abused in any of these videos is very low,” he said. “Fewer than
500 children anywhere in the world have ever been identified from
images recovered from the internet.”
