Susan Clairmont: Firewall failure: Forensic psychiatric patient accesses child porn on St. Joseph’s Hospital Wi-Fi network
The photo set off alarm bells.
A little girl, sitting on a boat and wearing a life-jacket. Nude from the waist down.
An IT staffer at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton found it on a hospital computer in October 2018.
Police were called and Det. Adam Baglieri, new to the Internet Child Exploitation Unit (ICE) investigated.
The IT department had flagged that particular image and content and believed that it was child pornography," Baglieri later testified in court.
Police determined a patient in the forensic psychiatry unit at the West 5th Campus had access to the computer when the photo was viewed.
Baglieri tried to imagine the odd circumstances" that would lead someone to query an image like that. However, after consulting with a more experienced colleague, Baglieri did not lay a charge.
We didn't feel the image met the definition of child pornography," he testified. It appeared to be more of a family picture."
We concluded the file was not for a sexual purpose."
The patient with access to the photo was Andrew Barkhouse, a man with no children.
Less than two years later, Baglieri would find 1,758 child pornography images linked to two cellphones and a laptop belonging to Barkhouse. He downloaded the photos - all of girls from four to 12 years old - while still living under a court order in the forensic unit at St. Joe's. He obtained the illegal photos using an IP address assigned to eHealth Ontario.
Barkhouse, 34, has been in psychiatric hospitals since he was 18 years old.
He is balding with a bushy beard. He can be quiet, polite and calm, but at other times court deemed him a significant threat to public safety." He has a Grade 11 education.
He says he has borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulting from childhood abuse.
A violent crime led him to be found not criminally responsible (NCR) by the court, which sent him to a forensic psychiatric facility for treatment.
He has been offered treatment in the past for pedophilia, but did not accept it. Until now, he has had no child-related incidents on his criminal record.
On Jan. 5, 2020, someone in the United States uploaded 56 media files containing child pornography and sent them to someone in Canada. Internet provider Yahoo alerted the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the U.S. The Centre contacted the National Child Exploitation Crime Centre maintained by the RCMP. In March 2020, the RCMP reached out to the Hamilton Police Service because the IP address - the unique numeric code that identifies a device on the internet - showed the receiver of the images was in Hamilton.
Det. Baglieri was assigned the case and on April 28, 2020, he reviewed the media files and the Yahoo user account's phone number and email address.
Some of the information was familiar to me," he said later in court. Most specifically, the name Andrew Barkhouse."
The files contained 28 unique images, and every single one of those files, I can confirm, met the legal definition of child pornography."
On May 5, 2020, Baglieri executed a search warrant at the St. Joe's forensic psychiatric unit, seizing two cellphones and a laptop computer belonging to Barkhouse.
Patients in the locked forensic unit are allowed to have electronic devices, unless they are under a court order not to.
Divya Sharma, a supervising nurse, testified the devices are sometimes kept in lockers for which only staff have keys. But patients also have a key to their own small smoking locker" where they keep cigarettes. Some put their phones in there.
Either way, they cannot access another patient's devices.
They can use their phones and computers in the visitor's lounge or outside in the courtyard. Staff monitor the use by some patients, but not others.
It depends on the patient and the situation," Sharma said. If we have some concerns on the content they are accessing, they are supervised. Otherwise, they are not."
Patients with privileges to leave the unit are able to take their devices with them when they go out.
Barkhouse had privileges to leave the hospital to go to work, unescorted. Court heard that through a temp agency he had overnight jobs, one of which was at a manufacturing plant. He needed his cellphone to call the hospital when he left one job site to go to the other.
He also used his devices to do his banking.
Sharma told court most patients access the internet by joining the hospital's wireless network, which is part of the eHealth system.
Members of the Hamilton police Technological Crimes Unit examined the phones and laptop.
It wasn't difficult to connect the dots.
There were 1,758 unique child pornography images stored in Google Photos.
Some images were saved directly onto Barkhouse's devices. The email accounts used to access the photos were associated to Andrew Barkhouse's name and cellphone number.
On June 10, 2021, at 8:30 a.m., Baglieri and other officers arrested Barkhouse at the hospital. He was handcuffed and charged with two counts of possession of child pornography, one related to the original photos discovered by American investigators and the other for the images found by Hamilton police.
At 10:35 a.m., at central station, Barkhouse was interviewed by Baglieri.
No offence officer but I've been in trouble with the law so many times over the years ... I'm just not that comfortable with police," Barkhouse told him.
Describe a child," said the detective.
Anyone under the age of 18," Barkhouse responded.
You were using the hospital's IP address," said Baglieri. Lo and behold ... pictures of child pornography on your computers. So how do you explain that Andy? ... What that tells me is you're using the internet provided to you by the hospital and you're looking at things you shouldn't be looking at ... You understand it's against the law to download those pictures of kids? ... You're accessing child pornography from a secure facility. This doesn't look good."
If a court sent Barkhouse to jail rather than a forensic psychiatric unit, he would not have access to the internet.
The website for eHealth Ontario explains its policy on inappropriate and unacceptable uses" which forbids possessing, viewing, downloading, transmitting or storing any pornography, or any involvement whatsoever with the traffic of such material."
The Spectator contacted the Ministry of Health to ask about Wi-Fi use by forensic patients.
It said hospital administrators are responsible for the oversight and provision of IT services such as internet and website access within the hospital."
The ministry recommended The Spec talk to St. Joseph's.
St. Joe's told The Spec that in the forensic psychiatry unit patients are given gradual privileges as an element of their rehab process ... While patients' electronic devices are confiscated and kept in locked storage when they enter the forensic unit, they have access to their personal belongings when utilizing temporary passes off the unit."
That is different than the evidence heard in court, which was that most patients have access to their devices on the unit.
St. Joe's told The Spectator it has a firewall to screen and exclude access to web pages deemed illegal, objectionable and inappropriate. The restriction is in place for all users accessing SJHH's Wi-Fi."
Yet, Barkhouse downloaded at least 28 and maybe as many as 1,758 child porn images using the hospital Wi-Fi.
The Spec asked St. Joe's if other patients have downloaded child pornography and what the hospital will do to prevent further incidents in the future.
The hospital did not respond to those questions.
Barkhouse's trial began Oct. 28, 2021, and was to last four days. He represented himself.
The Crown started by withdrawing the count of possession of child pornography related to the original photos detected by the Americans.
Then Barkhouse was placed in an unusual and disturbing situation.
Because he was self-represented, the court was obliged to give him the opportunity to review the evidence against him.
That is to say, he was allowed to look at the child pornography he was charged with possessing to determine if it met the Criminal Code definition of child pornography.
He reviewed the material in the presence of Peter Boushy, a criminal lawyer appointed to be Barkhouse's amicus or friend of the court" to help him navigate the trial.
After briefly looking at the images, Barkhouse re-entered the courtroom and agreed the photos were child pornography. He changed his plea to guilty.
It was decided Barkhouse should return to the courtroom on Dec. 13, 2021, to be sentenced, rather than participating by Zoom.
Given the allegations, I don't want to encourage too much computer use," Justice Anthony Leitch said.
The Crown and defence made a joint sentencing submission. Leitch did not immediately accept it.
There were too many holes that could allow Barkhouse to access child pornography. Closing those holes was difficult.
Though a pernicious" offence like this would normally result in jail time, Leitch handed Barkhouse a one-year conditional sentence to be served in the St. Joe's forensic unit or another forensic psychiatric hospital.
Putting him in jail would likely cause his mental health to worsen, which would not be in the public interest, Leitch said.
For the first six months, Barkhouse cannot leave the hospital grounds except with a staff member. For the second, there will be a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Three years probation will follow.
Barkhouse must forfeit the phones and laptop containing the criminal images.
A fourth device belonging to Barkhouse was discovered after his arrest. That was forfeited too. It is unclear if it contained child porn images. Court heard the hospital keeps no inventory of patients' devices.
An order preventing Barkhouse from ever having another device is too restrictive, the judge and lawyers decided. It would be difficult to bank or work or live as a productive member of society.
Yet Leitch was reluctant to rely solely on hospital supervision to prevent Barkhouse from reoffending.
He was using devices under the supervision of hospital staff members when he downloaded child pornography," Leitch said. There's really no supervision of these patients while they're using these devices."
Leitch ordered Barkhouse to not use any internet (en)abled device" except under continual and direct supervision" by hospital staff. He cannot access the internet except through the St. Joe's Wi-Fi or for work. He may not have encryption software and is prohibited from using any device to download child pornography or discuss it.
He must participate in recommended counselling, be entered into the national DNA databank and be placed on Canada's sex offender registry. He is prohibited from having weapons and going places where children gather unless accompanied by St. Joe's staff.
To complicate things further, much of Barkhouse's life at West 5th is dictated by the Ontario Review Board, which has jurisdiction over forensic psychiatric patients. The board decides if Barkhouse can work in the community, for instance.
It is nearly impossible to be a fully functioning adult without the use of electronic devices and access to the internet.
The court must balance that with the realities of mental-health care. It must also grapple with the potential impact on the lives of victimized children.
There is an army of depraved consumers of this ugly filth," Leitch said of child pornography. Children are revictimized endlessly by this."
This damage often lasts forever."
Susan Clairmont is a justice columnist at The Spectator. sclairmont@thespec.com