Man pleads guilty to sexual abuse of niece, friend’s daughter

As police investigated a man for sexually abusing his young niece and another girl, they discovered he was making plans to travel to Australia to meet a teenage girl he had been grooming online.

The 34-year-old Winnipeg man pleaded guilty last month to two counts of sexual interference, two counts of making child sexual abuse material and child luring for offences that occurred over 10 years.

The man remains in custody and will be sentenced in June following the completion of a court-ordered pre-sentence report.

An agreed statement of facts provided to court says the man was living with friends in 2014 when, over two years, he repeatedly recorded himself sexually abusing a friend’s daughter, beginning when she was two years old.

In 2020, the man was living with his sister, when he recorded himself sexually abusing his six-year-old niece.

The girl told her mother about the abuse in 2021 and the man was arrested, but charges against him were stayed in May 2022.

That same month, 10 child sexual abuse images were uploaded to an instant messaging platform from an account later confirmed to belong to the accused.

Winnipeg police arrested the man in August 2023 and seized from him two laptop computers and two cellphones, which were later found to contain videos of him sexually abusing the two victims and other child sexual abuse material.

A review of the man’s cellphones found that in August and September 2023 he had searched for “how to get to Australia,” “how to travel with a criminal record,” and “work in Australia.”

Court records confirm the man has convictions for drug and weapon offences.

Further investigation uncovered a cache of communications between the man and someone who identified herself as a 15-year-old girl named Kaitlyn.

“Throughout the chats, the accused repeatedly acknowledged Kaitlyn’s age,” says the agreed statement of facts.

The man sent the girl a video of himself masturbating and “Kaitlyn” sent him a picture of a girl in a school uniform and another of a girl with her breasts exposed. Neither picture showed the girl’s face.

“I’m just a pedo in love with his kid girlfriend,” the man said in one message. “But your age doesn’t matter to me. Someday you’ll be my wife and you will always be my little girl.”

Notes on his cellphone included travel plans such as buying a “burner phone,” changing sim cards and “wiping” his travel phone of all incriminating data so border agents “can’t invade your privacy.”

Another note detailed what the man knew about the girl, including her favourite colour, flower, food and ring size.

The man received notice in February 2024 that his visa application had been rejected.

Investigators were able to locate a man identified as the targeted girl’s brother, but not the girl.

“Ultimately, the Crown cannot prove whether the person who communicated with the accused as “Kaitlyn” was a child or an adult posing as a child,” says the agreed statement of facts.

The man was in custody in October 2024 when a woman who was mushroom hunting in Scanterbury found a duffel bag containing a gun, drugs, several electronic devices and USB sticks. A review of the electronic devices uncovered more evidence connected to the two child victims and “Kaitlyn,” and several instructional videos on how to access the dark web.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca