A suspended prison officer accused of possessing extreme pornographic images of animals has had the criminal charges against him dropped.
Craig Powell was expected to stand trial over allegations that he was in possession of images showing sexual acts with a dog and a horse, according to Teesside Live.
The 40-year-old denied the charges which purportedly occurred on February 1, 2020 in Hartlepool.
He was scheduled to appear at Teeside Crown Court to stand trail on January 20, however the prosecution has now been halted.
The charges state he possessed an extreme pornographic image which portrayed, in an explicit and realistic way, a person performing an act of intercourse with a live animal which was grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character and a reasonable person looking at the image would think that any such person or animal was real.
The Hartlepool man appeared at the Middlesbrough court in April and pleaded not guilty to the offences.
It was previously reported that Powell is a prison officer and had been suspended from his position following the charges.
However, the Crown Prosecution Service has now confirmed there was "no longer a realistic prospect of conviction" after analysis of Powell's mobile phone.
A spokesperson said: “The charges for possessing two extreme pornographic images were initially brought in this case after images were found on the defendant’s phone.
"Those images had previously been sent to the defendant via a chat app.
"However, a subsequent digital forensic report provided by the defence showed that those images could have been sent to the defendant on an older device and automatically transferred to his new phone from the cloud without his knowledge.
“The images themselves were also untitled, with no way of knowing whether they had ever been viewed, which would make it extremely difficult to prove that the defendant was ever aware of their content.
"In light of this evidence, a review of the case found that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction and we took the decision to offer no evidence for all charges.”
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