SELECTED CASE LAW
ONTARIO:
[2007] OJ No 5811 (ONCJ)
In [2007] OJ No 5811 (ONCJ), Mr. C pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography, breaching recognizance of bail, making child pornography and voyeurism. He had been surreptitiously making recordings of his niece and other children in the community and editing the images and storing them in different formats. Mr. C was arrested and his computer, storage devices, hard drives, CDs, DVDs and thumb drives were seized containing 14,869 unique images of child pornography, 44,487 images of nude children, 650,063 “other” unique images of children, and 600 videos of child pornography, 112 videos of child nudity, and 7,743 other videos of children. Most children were prepubescent females, including photos of adults sexually assaulting children. The court cited R v Strohmeier, in which Justice DeFilippis stated:
Possession of child pornography is a serious offence. The following general observations explain why: First, the prevalence of the offence is of great concern to the community. Whether it is because of the greater use of the Internet or an increase in law enforcement, there are more cases of possession of child pornography. In any event, the minimum jail term is a recent amendment to the Criminal Code and reflects Parliament’s decision to remove the possibility of a conditional sentence for the offence. Second, the victimization of children captured in picture and video never ends. Time passes but the images remain. With the push of a button, those images can be shared with countless individuals throughout the world. Third, notwithstanding the permanent record that exists, greater exposure of child pornography leads to increased production, and the abuse of more children. Finally, there is a link between images of child pornography and inhibitions about the sexual assault of children.
He was sentenced to 18-months’ incarceration for possession of child pornography, 12 months for distributing child pornography, 6 months for the voyeurism, 2 months for the breach of re-cognizance, as well as 3 years of probation, and orders to not use or possess devices capable of storing digital data unless for work, not to use email unless allowed by probation officer, to provide the probation officer with information on his ISP, not to communicate with people under the age of 18, not to use social networking sites or chatrooms, not to possess images of children naked or in sexual manner, not to possess a firearm, to provide a DNA sample, to be registered as a sex offender for 10 years, not to be in public places with children, not to use a computer to communicate with a person under the age of 14 and to forfeit his devices.
Criminal Offence(s): Voyeurism