(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)

"IT WAS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC."

KELOWNA – A friend of a former Vernon cop and his ex-wife Valerie Little, who accuses him of downloading child pornography, says she believes Little was trying to get pregnant to have a better chance at taking sole custody of their kids. She also testified Little accidentally played a pornographic video in their family home after a childs birthday party in 2011.

Const. Michelle Ilic, herself a member of the RCMP, worked with Ryan Hampton at the Vernon detachment before he was arrested and charged with downloading more than 60 pictures and videos of child porn in 2013.

She says her friendship with Hampton and Little let her observe their relationship up-close and from both sides.

She told Justice Barry Davies in Kelowna Supreme Court Thursday that she knew the Hampton’s were having marital trouble, which is why she found it so odd when Valerie texted her saying she wanted a third child.

On April 10, less than a month before Little would take a hard drive with the images to the RCMP, Little sent Ilic a picture of a positive pregnancy test. The next day Ryan Hampton also texted Ilic saying Little kicked him out of the house after an argument.

“It was odd that she told me about the pregnancy but I hadn’t been told she left her home in Vernon and gone to Vancouver Island with her two little children.”

Court heard that wasn’t the first strange encounter Ilic had with Valerie Little.

Two years prior, while at Hampton’s Vernon home with her husband, Ilic says Little took them downstairs and showed them a disturbing video of a penis mutilation on a home computer. Hampton was home at the time, she said, but not in the room.

“I recall laughter (was her reaction),” Ilic said. “It was extremely graphic.”

Ilic also told Davies that while at the Hampton home after a birthday party in March, 2013, a pornographic movie came on the TV in the living room.

“Miss little came running in saying shut off the TV there’s a porno,” she testified. “She shut if off before I saw what was on it.”

The observations are considered relevant because Hampton alleges Little herself downloaded the images, covered her tracks using a variety of software programs she admits she downloaded, before turning the drive over to police. Hampton’s lawyer Jason Tarnow says she did it to frame him and get sole custody of their kids and the family home.

Ilic says she also remembers a conversation she had with Little in which Little expressed a thorough understanding of child custody proceedings. She also told a story of Hampton’s ex-sister-in-law who won custody of her kids by getting her then-husband so aggravated that he assaulted her in front of a daycare.

“Miss Little told me she was going to leave Mr. Hampton and she was waiting until she got pregnant,” Ilic says. “We were discussing child support and she knew how much support she could get for two or three children.”

Hampton was charged in June 2013 with possession of child pornography, accessing child pornography and obstructing a police investigation. He has pleaded not guilty.

The trial continues.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Adam Proskiw at aproskiw@infonews.ca or call 250-718-0428. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

News from © iNFOnews, 2015