SELECTED CASE LAW
SASKATCHEWAN:
In 2012 SKQB 330, 21-year-old Mr. P was charged with 50 counts of child pornography offences, including making child pornography available to others, distributing child pornography by Facebook and email, and accessing child pornography on Facebook. Each of the fifty counts provides for a mandatory minimum sentence of 1 year.
Mr. P distributed child pornography using GigaTribe, a file sharing site. Many images were of infants. P also produced child pornography at his parents’ farm. He also wrote graphic stories which were considered to be child pornography, which he shared on Facebook. These stories involved graphic accounts of rape, torture, and murder of children. He distributed one 17-page story via email.
P’s web browsing history showed that he was searching Kijiji and Craigslist for babysitting jobs for young female children, had signed up to work for a babysitting service, had been reading articles about pedophiles in the community, had performed Google searches looking for child dating sites and for toddler incest and toddler erotic stories, and had possessed instruction manuals for offenders.
The Court noted that Mr. P had been viewing child pornography since age 14, and that he agreed that he has a sickness when it comes to viewing and collecting child pornography. The Crown requested a 7-year global sentence. Defence counsel proposed 2-3 years, noting that P was frail, introverted, turned to the internet for friends, and had a fiancée and a 1-year-old son. Noting that in order to receive treatment P would have to be put in a federal institution, it ultimately sentenced him to 5-years imprisonment, along with several ancillary orders including prohibitions on attending places where persons under 16 are present, an order to provide a DNA sample, an order to comply with the Sexual Offender Information Registry Act, and an order to forfeit certain computer equipment associated with his offences.
Criminal Offence(s): Child Pornography Offences