Seven years sought for serial harasser

Alexander Beaton finished serving a two-year jail sentence for criminally harassing six women and didn’t last two days in the community before he was back at it, sending unwanted obscene messages and videos to a dozen women.

Now prosecutors are seeking a seven-year prison sentence for the 30-year-old Winnipeg man, whose latest string of victims includes a police officer who investigated his earlier crimes.

“He essentially continued (offending) unabated,” Crown attorney Brett Rach told provincial court Judge Malcolm McDonald at a sentencing hearing Friday. “It caused more than a nuisance to these victims — it caused them to fear for their safety.”

Beaton pleaded guilty to 14 charges of criminal harassment, sending indecent communications and breaching court orders for a campaign of harassment waged between 2015 and 2025.

Beaton’s victims included staff at job training centres he had previously utilized, a former co-worker, a childhood friend and a lawyer. Three of the women were among the victims Beaton had previously been convicted of harassing.

“I would submit there was some misogynistic-type motivation that caused Mr. Beaton to target these particular women. Essentially, any (woman), regardless of why they came into contact with him, was at risk of being offended against by him,” Rach said.

One childhood friend said Beaton harassed her for nearly a decade, ending in December 2024.

The woman said she had lost touch with Beaton until he sent her a Facebook message including a video showing him masturbating to a picture of her. Beaton continued to send the woman sexually graphic messages and videos for years.

In 2024, Beaton turned his attention to the woman’s mother, sending her a video of himself masturbating to a picture of her daughter.

“It’s just absolutely horrific that a mother had to see that kind of content,” Rach said.

A Winnipeg police officer who previously investigated Beaton was one of several women Beaton targeted with a series of sexually graphic emails and videos in March 2025 that included discussions of sex with underage girls and pedophilia.

Many of Beaton’s unsolicited emails and videos included comments denigrating himself sexually, with one email containing the subject line: “I just want everyone in Winnipeg to humiliate me.”

“The fact that he is essentially demeaning himself does not detract from the reasons he engaged in the behaviour or the reasons he targeted these women,” Rach told McDonald. “It’s not helpful for your task today to focus on the fact he’s making fun of the size of his own penis. He’s doing that for a specific purpose, and that is to receive sexual gratification objectifying these women in order to receive what he wants.”

Between 2020 and 2025, Beaton repeatedly harassed female staff at a city job centre, leaving voicemails of himself masturbating and sexually graphic messages and videos.

In March 2025, Beaton sent one of the staff members two sexually graphic emails, in defiance of a protection order she had secured prohibiting him from having any contact with her.

A search of Beaton’s phone following his arrest uncovered a photo of him holding his penis in front of the protection order.

Court heard several victims blocked Beaton from messaging them, only for him to contact them using another, email or social media account.

“Every time I try and move forward, he finds a way to contact me,” said one woman in a victim impact statement. “I have not gone back to work in my field because I am constantly on edge about the people around me… I have anxiety every time the phone rings and I don’t recognize the number.”

Another woman said she has a “constant feeling of being watched “ on social media.

“Being mercilessly contacted has changed the way I live my life,” she said.

Defence lawyer Pam Smith recommended Beaton be sentenced to four years in prison, double the sentence he previously received.

Smith rejected the Crown’s description of Beaton’s crimes as misogynistic.

“He gets sexual gratification from women — that’s not targeting women, in particular, because they’re vulnerable,” Smith said. “In this case, I would say he chose the opposite of a vulnerable victim. He chose strong women… people who would not be afraid to report him, would not be cowed by his behaviour and think they had nowhere to turn.”

Beaton sent many of his messages from his personal email, which could be easily traced back to him, Smith said.

“It’s almost like a cry for help,” she said. “He targeted a police officer.”

Smith said Beaton previously blamed his actions on drugs, but now understands “these are the actions of someone who needs serious counselling.”

McDonald will sentence Beaton at a later date.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca