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Convicted Child Rapist Refuses Laptop Passwords in £5m Drug Profits Hearing, Citing Past Fraud
A convicted child rapist who ran a multi-million-pound black-market prescription drugs operation with his partner has told a judge he is reluctant to disclose his computer passwords because he was previously a “victim of fraud”.
Christopher Templeman, 39, and Lisa Marie Harper, 40, are both serving long prison sentences for their crimes.
For nearly three years the couple operated from a 30-foot storage unit in Carlisle, selling stolen medication – including steroids and highly addictive opioids – to customers worldwide. At least one buyer, a teenager in Scotland, died from a fatal overdose after taking pills they supplied.
The pair were back at Carlisle Crown Court for a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing as prosecutors seek to recover an estimated £5 million in criminal profits.
Prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told Judge Michael Fanning that the key to establishing the full scale of the profits is Templeman’s laptop, which is believed to contain bitcoin wallets linked to drug sales.
Defence experts had heavily criticised police valuations of the drugs, but Rogerson said proper assessment was only possible with access to the laptop.
“So far, Mr Templeman has refused to provide access,” he said.
Templeman’s barrister, John Lamb, said he was applying for legal aid for an expert to examine the device and was confident its contents could be accessed. When asked if police would also be given access, Lamb replied that his client was “concerned about personal information on there, independent of the relevance of these proceedings”.
Judge Fanning noted that only Templeman knows what is on the laptop and warned that without access, police would have to base their assessment on existing evidence.
Appearing via video link from prison, Templeman told the judge: “At no point have I denied access to the prosecution; I don’t know the password, but I believe it may be a password I have used regularly.”
Rogerson suggested Templeman simply provide the likely password so police could examine the laptop in “sanitised” conditions.
Templeman replied: “I’ve been a victim of fraud before; I don’t want to give out a massive list of passwords.”
The judge adjourned the case until 15 June to allow both sides to explore “joint access” to the laptop.
Operation run from a 30-feet long storage unit
In May 2025, Templeman was jailed for nine years and Harper, a former carer, for six years after they admitted conspiring to supply prescription drugs.
Police recovered pills worth £1.5 million from the storage unit, plus almost £5,000 cash and £600,000 in bitcoin held in Templeman’s name.
Templeman was previously convicted in 2009, aged 21, of multiple child rapes after a trial at which a video he recorded of himself abusing his 12-year-old victim was played in court.