Filmmaker Rémy Couture
On trial for producing content deemed obscene.
Graphic, gory material produced by a Montreal specialeffects expert charged with producing, possessing and circulating obscene material could violate the fundamental values of Canadian society, a crown prosecutor told the jury on the opening day of Rémy Couture’s trial.
The case — an unusual one to pass through Quebec courts — is not so much about sex but about exploiting cruelty, crime and violence, said Michel Pennou in his opening statement to Quebec Superior Court.
Jurors spent the afternoon viewing dozens of photos found on Couture’s site, called InnerDepravity.com.
Sorted under several photo galleries with headings such as “Hooks,” “Sacrifice” and “Kidnapping,” the photos depict women bound, gagged and being tortured by a knife or box cutter.
Blood and bruises, created by Couture’s stash of makeup, are plentiful, but no one was hurt or died in the making of the photos and two videos.
Pennou told jurors they will have to ask themselves
The unusual case is about exploiting cruelty, crime and violence.
two questions while listening to and viewing the evidence.
Are the images obscene, and if so, could they influence certain people to act in an anti-social manner?
A psychologist and psychiatrist are to be called to testify for the Crown to show how viewing such material could provoke someone to act out.
Peter Collins, a psychiatrist who works with Ontario Provincial Police, is to talk about sexual deviance and sadism.
Austrian police were told of Couture’s site about six years ago, after someone in Germany reported it.
It was then passed on to Interpol, and Couture, 35, was arrested by Montreal police in October 2009.
Police obtained a search warrant to go through Couture’s east-end apartment, but first posed as a potential customer for his material. When they arrived on his street, they phoned him and asked him to come outside.
When he did, they arrested him.
“Why didn’t you just knock on his door?” Couture’s lawyer, Robert Doré, asked investigator Juan Munizaga.
They were concerned about the safety of the officers given the nature of the videos, Munizaga said.
“But after months of investigation, you had pretty solid information about who Rémy Couture was,” Doré said. “He’s an ordinary citizen who made a video.”
The trial continues Wednesday.