The Court did not believe the offender’s late, uncorroborated and inconsistent claim that he is a person of First Nations heritage. He is sentenced to 26 months for the possession of child pornography contrary to s 163(4) of the Criminal Code.
Indigenous Law Centre
Indigenous CaseWatch Blog
Just over a year prior, the offender entered a guilty plea to a single count that he did, without lawful excuse, possess child pornography in the form of videos and images contrary to section 163(4) of the Criminal Code. The Crown elected to proceed by way of indictment. Leading up to sentencing, there was preparation of a pre-sentence report, a Sexual Behaviours Assessment and a Gladue report.
The Ottawa Police Service initiated an investigation into the possession and sharing of suspected child pornography by following the information of an IP address that identified and led them to locate the offender’s home address. A search warrant was executed on the residence and the offender was placed under arrest. A desktop computer was seized as well as an external hard drive. There were 6617 images of child pornography and 611 videos of child pornography.
Although Gladue factors could be relevant to a sentencing for possession of child pornography, the offender brought this claim forward especially late in the proceedings after he was expressly provided opportunity to claim First Nations heritage. He was adopted at six months into a Franco-Ontarian family and therefore the source of ethnicity would be his birth parents. He could only recall his mother’s first name. The Court did not ultimately believe the offender’s late, uncorroborated and inconsistent claim that he is a person of First Nations heritage.
Overall, in the circumstances in this case, the record did not reflect a situation where credit should be given due to the restrictive nature of the bail conditions. Further, the court was not convinced on a balance of probabilities that the offender had been making serious and consistent efforts towards rehabilitation and thus not able to receive any credit.
An important case in Ontario involving sentencing for the possession of child pornography is R v Inksetter, 2018 ONCA 474 [“Inksetter“], and in the present matter the offender’s collection was nowhere near as large and while vile, did not seem to have been of the same level of depravity as that in Inksetter. He was cooperative with police while arrested, he plead guilty, complied with the conditions of his bail and had been a model resident at the John Howard Bail Bed Program. However, there was no clear indication the offender was truly remorseful. His cavalier attitude towards treatment lead the court to believe he had no true insight into his pedophilia. The age of children, size of collection and nature of acts depicted were aggravating. The most aggravating was his prior criminal record which consisted entirely of sexual assaults against children. This single factor alone would make a reformatory sentence inappropriate. Based on the foregoing, a sentence of twenty-six months was appropriate with the ancillary orders put forward by the Crown granted.