THE victim of a vicious machete attack in Ellesmere Port has been fined after officers investigating the assault found a joke ‘pig porn’ video on his phone.

Abdul Kader Mohammed Haque, 32, formerly of Canal Side, Chester, spent a week in hospital being treated for leg injuries after the incident on November 1 last year.

He willingly passed his phone over to officers as part of their investigation, which later led to two men receiving lengthy prison sentences.

Haque said he was then shocked to receive a call almost four months later asking him to attend the police station to answer questions about possession of extreme pornography.

During a trial at Chester Magistrates Court on Friday, prosecutor Anouska Youds said: “The phone was submitted for forensic analysis. It was found to contain a video of a female engaging in sexual activity with a pig.”

Haque admitted he was aware of the video, as it was sent by a friend as a joke, but claimed he had never opened it and denied knowing it was sexual or explicit in nature.

He said it had been sent as a WhatsApp text message by a friend called Jamie Rose and all he could see was a ‘thumbnail’ image of a pig on a barrel.

The court heard he had then replied to his friend, saying: “You’re a dirty dog!”

Mrs Youds suggested this was proof that he had seen the video, but Haque argued that he had merely been commenting on the thumbnail image of the pig and never clicked on it.

Under cross-examination, he told the court: “When Jamie Rose sent me that video I did not open it. It was a screen shot of that image and all I’ve seen was an animal, a pig, on a barrel. That’s why I said ‘that’s dirty’.

“I didn’t want to click on it because I thought it might be a virus.”

Asked by Mrs Youds why he called Mr Rose a “dirty dog”, he replied: “Because a pig is a dirty animal. I’m a Muslim and pigs are dirty.”

The court heard that, by law, someone only commits an offence of possession of extreme pornography if they request the video be sent to them or fail to delete it in good time.

Through his solicitor, Richard Sibeon, Haque argued that a feature of WhatsApp messages is that photos are automatically stored directly into the phone’s picture library.

His mobile phone was often used as a communal phone among friends, as it had unlimited calls and texts, so the three-minute video quickly became buried in the photo library and forgotten about.

Mr Sibeon argued it could even have been deleted at the time, only to be recovered later by forensic officers.

Haque told the court he had been happy to hand over his phone after he was attacked with a machete on Princes Road.

“I thought they were going to check if I was friends with the people who attacked me,” he said. “I had nothing to hide.”

However, magistrates did not believe his account saying he had changed his story between his police interview and giving live evidence in court.

Mrs Youds had told the court that Haque originally told officers he had “no knowledge” of the video at all.

Chair of magistrates Jean Banford told the defendant: “We reject your evidence because you’ve given conflicting accounts between your interview and evidence today.

“We are satisfied you were in possession of the video, viewed it and went on to make comments about it.”

Haque, who has four previous convictions for six offences, was fined £180 and must also pay £620 in court costs. Magistrates ordered that the phone containing the video be destroyed.

The defendant told the court he still has nerve damage to his leg and has now moved to Bradford due to the trauma he experienced following the machete attack.