RCMP officer who works in national security acquitted of accessing child porn on dark web
Const. Michael Scoretz still facing two breach charges, separate investigation involving an intimate partner
Despite expert testimony about how users cannot stumble across child pornography on the dark web, and witness testimony that RCMP Const. Michael Scoretz showed his girlfriend an image of a naked and sexualized little girl, a judge acquitted the officer in provincial court on Thursday (May 29, 2025).
Judge Peter Whyte determined that while Scoretz's romantic partner Ann Fletcher, who reported the incident, was an honest witness and Scoretz's behaviour was "suspicious," he couldn't get to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Scoretz was originally charged with two counts of accessing child pornography, one from the incident with Fletcher in Chilliwack on May 10, 2022, and one from Aug. 31, 2022, in Burnaby. The details of the latter case were never explained in court. At trial in March, Crown counsel Chandra Fisher said they were dropping that charge.
The incident on trial in March 2025 occurred in May 2022 when the new couple were lying in bed discussing their future plans. Fletcher asked Scoretz, an officer who worked on the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET), what he could tell her about the dark web. Scoretz told her a little about its history, how it was created by the U.S. Navy to protect American intelligence online.
He then said, "maybe it's easier if I just show you," Fletcher recounted on the witness stand on March 25, 2025. Scoretz downloaded Tor, the software needed to access the dark web to use so-called "onion routing" to stay anonymous online.
He landed on a chat forum, scrolled up collecting links, copy-and-pasting on a separate screen then he said: "Now we wait. You have to wait to be invited in."
Fletcher didn't know what he was accessing, but what appeared shocked her. It was a naked pre-pubescent girl with blonde hair who, based on the graphic description Fletcher provided, was clearly the victim of a sexual assault.
Horrified, Fletcher told him to shut it down, and she was so upset she wanted an explanation. Scoretz didn't act surprised or in shock himself, but instead asked questions of her, such as “Do you think that being able to access this type of forum, this type of material, can be of benefit in that it can protect children from being harmed?”
She said "no" she didn't. He continued, claiming incorrectly that pedophilia is a sexual orientation like others and accused her of being homophobic and a fascist. She told him that he this was harming children. Scoretz packed up, accused her of doing something wrong to make him leave and that was it.
In shock about what she had witnessed, then terrified by the notion of reporting an RCMP officer to the RCMP, she didn't file a complaint right away. But eventually she did. He was investigated and charged.
Judge Whyte who oversaw the trial had a difficult decision to make on a number of levels, including: did the evidence meet the legal test in the criminal code regarding accessing child pornography? There is a four-step test: did Scoretz access the image; did it constitute child porn; did he know the nature of the content; and did he intend to view it?
The first two were clear, the latter two were always likely to cause reasonable doubt, even though an RCMP digital forensic examiner said that on the dark web, you can't stumble across anything nefarious. You need to know what you are doing.
“You can’t just accidentally fall onto the dark web,” the RCMP expert witness said. “You have to take very specific steps in order to access websites.”
The RCMP expert explained that on the regular internet, distinguished from the dark web as the “clearnet,” if want to go to CNN you could type in the url CNN.com, or search CNN on Google. On the dark web, you not only need to have special software, such as Tor, you can’t simply search for websites with a search engine. The sites are not indexed. You can’t accidentally bounce around from illegal weapons sales to media whistleblowing forms to child pornography.
“You very much need to research the type of information you are looking for,” he explained.
“If you know what types of images you want to go to see, you use that .onion site and use it like a web browser.”
While Fletcher didn't know what she was going to be shown that day by Scoretz, in hindsight it was clear that he was on a pedophile forum asking to access child pornography.
Still, it was one image that Fletcher saw for as little as one second. The unusual and technical aspects of the dark web meant that even with expert testimony, Judge Whyte had some question about Scoretz's intention when he accessed the image, so he landed on reasonable doubt and an acquittal.
Traumatized by the entire experience, Fletcher said the system failed in this case and she will continue to fight.
“I am deeply disappointed by the judge’s decision to acquit a man I reported and testified against on child pornography charges,” Fletcher told me Thursday. “I did not come forward lightly. There is an advocate in my belly, and I chose to act – to protect children and speak truthfully, even at great personal cost.
“Justice was not served today. I will continue to advocate for the protection of the vulnerable, even when the system fails to.”
More legal troubles
While Scoretz was acquitted of accessing child pornography in this case, his legal troubles are not over.
He is also charged with two criminal breaches of his release order from April 15 and May 24, 2023, from Bowen Island where he lives. One of the breaches is an allegation that while he was forbidden from contacting Fletcher, he commented on one of her Instagram posts. It’s unclear what the other breach allegation is about, but apparently involves another woman. After he was acquitted on May 29, 2025, conditions that he stay away from places where children might be present, and that he not contact Fletcher were lifted, but a condition that he not contact another woman is still in place.
A trial for those breach charges is scheduled for Aug. 7 and 8, 2025.
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Paul J. Henderson
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