SELECTED CASE LAW
ALBERTA:
In 2010 ABCA 157, Mr. H pleaded guilty to four counts of luring a child and four counts of counselling the children he lured to make child pornography at trial.
While in his mid-twenties, Mr. H began online relationships with four girls aged 14 and 15 that he met on social networking sites. He would speak with the girl for long periods of time and eventually convinced them to appear naked and masturbate in front of a web camera or to send him similar types of photos. He told the girls he had deleted some of the photos when he did not, used the images to extort more images from one of the girls, and used the two of the girls’ nude images as his profile photo, which they had to ask him to take down. His behaviour lasted over a period of about three years.
He was caught when he tried to engage with a fifth girl, whose mother reported him to the police. Upon arrest, the police found 35 folders labelled with female names, some contained web camera images, others included child pornography downloaded from the internet.
The Crown sought leave to appeal Mr. H’s sentence of two years less a day and two years’ probation.
The court held that the trial judge had given an unfit sentence considering the highly aggravated factors of the case, and had also underemphasized the severity of Mr. H’s actions, but dis-missed the Crown’s leave to appeal the sentence because Mr. H was doing well in his sexual offender programming at his current institution. It stated that Mr. H would be best served to continue his rehabilitation in the program and additional programming once released on probation.
Criminal Offence(s): Child Pornography Offences ; Luring a Child