The 72-year-old accused pleaded guilty to two offenses possession of child pornography and failure to comply with a condition of his release order by possessing a computer device and accessing the internet contrary to the Criminal Code. Investigations were initialized when the accused brought his computer to technicians for repairs twice, and they made reports to authorities. An RCMP investigation revealed 1300 unique images of child pornography, including 18 unique images under Category 5: sadism or bestiality (para. 8). A report compiled by the RCMP constable attached to the Internet Child Exploitation Unit in Whitehorse, Yukon indicated that the Category 5 images included “images that actually belong to a video in which the female gives a fellatio to a dog. There are images of a dog penetrating a young female. There is a close-up image of a young female whom I believe was just penetrated by a dog and there are also images of a dog licking a female’s anus” (para. 9).
While the Court acknowledged that the accused was not actively involved in the abuse occurring in the videos or images, it found that section 718.01 of the CC that would give consideration to sentencing involving denunciation and deterrence applied to this offence. Three Victim Impact Statements from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection were submitted, two of which read into the record: the first from “Jenny” who was seven when her abuser began molesting and photographing her, which went on for two years until he was caught sending those pictures to other men on the Internet (para. 14) and another from a victim’s mother who described the impacts this crime has had on her child’s life (para. 15). The Court also quoted from paragraphs 47 and 48 in Friesen, regarding how technology has accelerated and proliferated child sexual exploitation, and that “online distribution of films or images depicting sexual violence against a child repeats the original sexual violence since the child has to live with the knowledge that others may be accessing the films or images” (para. 16).
The Court accepted defence counsel’s explanations that he had sat with the accused and read the victim impact statements to him, noting that he did not appreciate the harm that he was doing by possessing these images (para. 28) and accepted the joint sentence submission of counsel.
The accused was sentenced to 15 months on the possession charge and an additional three months for the failure to comply with release orders, for a total of 18 months with 72 days credit for time served. He was also sentenced to two years of conditional probation as well as a prohibition order against the use or possession of an Internet router or any computer system including a smartphone capable of Internet access or browsing. The Court also approved the request for forfeiture of the devices and router that was seized from the accused’s premises.
https://canlii.ca/t/k2d62