Simon Bunce broke the golden rule - he bought something on the internet and paid for it with his credit card. Then someone in Indonesia hacked into his account and bought child pornography with it.
Four years ago he had a visit from the police involved in Operation Ore, the UKs largest ever police hunt for internet paedophiles. They took away his computer and all his storage devices, flash drives, CD and floppy disks. Unfortunately, they also went to his place of business to check his computer there.
When his employer found out what he had been arrested for, he was immediately sacked from his 125,000 pound a year job and his family shunned him. The only person who stuck by him was his wife who trusted him completely.
"I made the mistake of telling my father and he cut me off" he said. "He then told all my siblings and they also cut me off."
Mr Bunce knew he was innocent and that police would not find anything on his computer, but several months went by before they got around to looking at it.
And after months of mental torture, he finally got lucky. He discovered that when the hacker in Jakarta used his credit card to buy child pornography, Mr Bunce could prove he used the same card, on the same day, at a restaurant in South London.
In September 2004, the police told Mr Bunce they now knew he was innocent and confirmed there was nothing on his computer, but the damage was done. It took six more months before he got another job, earning one quarter of what he was earning before.
And now we see this man's true character after being shunned by his family. "I've forgiven them" he said. "There's no point in bearing a grudge."
Four years on, he is bringing a high court action against the shopping website for allowing his personal details to be stolen.
And he doesn't use credit cards anymore either.
No comments:
Post a Comment