Trial told of doctor's encrypted porn files

Encrypted files revealed to be pornographic material were found in a digital forensic analysis of Geraldton doctor Dinendra Athukorala’s computer, a court has been told.

Digital forensic analyst Ryan Baxter described to the jury on Friday the use and set-up of a system of computers found in the Shenton Street unit belonging to Dr Athukorala and his wife Chamari Liyanage, who is on trial for his murder.

Five computers and numerous external hard drives were seized by police.

A timeline showing the use of two laptops used the night before Dr Athukorala died, one by Dr Athukorala and the other by Dr Liyanage, was shown to the jury.

A Hewlett-Packard laptop, allegedly belonging to Dr Liyanage, was used until about 1am on June 24, 2014.

Emergency services were called to the unit about 6.15am.

Dr Liyanage searched the internet for information about private schools in Darwin and jobs in Queensland.

The couple had been on the phone to Dr Athukorala’s brother for almost an hour that night offering him advice on emigrating to Australia.

An Acer laptop, suggested from the log-in details to belong to Dr Athukorala, was used to access a virtual private network for a period of two hours.

A VPN hides the location of the user from any party attempting to identify them, making it appear they are located in a different country. Mr Baxter said it was commonly used for privacy reasons or to access illegal services.

The Hewlett Packard laptop also accessed a VPN for a period of three hours that night.

Dr Athukorala conducted internet searches for schools and was researching the cost of living in Adelaide to help his brother.

The computer was shut down at 8.14pm, but restarted at 10.10pm until the last user activity was recorded at 10.53pm.

Dr Baxter said a seedbox server was also accessed, which is a remote server used to upload and download digital files anonymously from a personal computer.