A convicted paedophile has been found not guilty of breaching a supervision order after he was found in possession of images of children.
Bradley Pen Dragon was charged with contravening a supervision order only days after his release from prison on June 21.
Perth Magistrates Court heard he was charged after it was discovered that sheets of newspaper in his possession had pictures of children on them.
The police prosecutor said as part of his release requirements, he was not allowed be in possession "of any images of children whatsoever", and these requirements were discussed with him on June 22.
Dragon had artworks he had done in prison, including one of a child in a crowd of adults and another which the prosecutor said depicted an "adult female breastfeeding an infant".
Dragon told corrections officer about artworks
The court heard Dragon had alerted a senior community corrections officer about these works, while he was in motel accommodation on June 23, and the paintings were taken from him before he went to his permanent accommodation.
The prosecutor said the case was about the images on the newspaper pages.
Detective Senior Constable Desmond Cook told the court he conducted a search of Dragon's permanent accommodation on June 23.
He said 11 newspaper pages which had images of children on them were seized.
A video of the search was shown in court, in which Dragon was heard to say there was "no discovery", apparently disputing a description made by the detective.
The detective told the court the newspaper pages had painting on one side, and there were 14 pages which had no images of children.
The court was also told that the dates on the newspaper pages ran from January through to March of 2020.
'Must be acquitted': Magistrate
Magistrate Richard Huston said it was up to the prosecution to prove all the elements of the offence.
He said Dragon had admitted he was subject to 62 conditions since being released, including that he not be in possession of any images of children, "indecent or not".
Magistrate Huston said for the prosecution to succeed, it needed to be proven beyond reasonable doubt that Dragon knew the images were there, and "he can't be in possession of something if he didn't know it was there".
Magistrate Huston stated the "prosecutor concedes that there's no hard evidence" Dragon knew of the images of the children.
He said the prosecutor was asking him to make an inference that Dragon knew.
"And I can't. I can't," he said, adding Dragon "must be acquitted".
Costs of more than $5,300 were awarded to the 62-year-old, who was represented by Legal Aid.
