U of W to review hiring practices

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This article was published 20/12/2019 (2424 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The University of Winnipeg will be reviewing its hiring practices after hiring a registered sex offender to be an assistant professor of criminal justice and appointing him to its senate.

Derek Spencer, who has been teaching at the university since 2017, was convicted in 2010 of possessing child pornography when he was 19. A judge sentenced him to nine months in jail, three years of probation, and placed him on the sex offender registry for 10 years.

Kevin Rosen, a spokesman for the university, said: “We will be reviewing the policy and procedures” for hiring at the institution.

Rosen said privacy legislation prevented him from saying anything more other than to confirm Spencer is currently on leave.

Spencer, who was known as Matthew David Spencer when he was arrested and went to trial, later published academic research as Matthew Derek Spencer before being known as Derek Spencer at the university.

Between 2007 and 2015, Spencer received two undergraduate degrees from the University of Saskatchewan before getting his master of laws degree from the University of Victoria. His thesis was entitled “Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act.”

Spencer, besides teaching at the University of Winnipeg, was appointed this year to be a member of the university’s senate. He was formerly co-chair of the Department Research and Ethics Committee.

Spencer was first charged in 2007 of possession and distribution of child pornography after police in Saskatchewan, without getting a warrant, received subscriber information about an account accessing child pornographic files.

After then getting a warrant to search a residence, Spencer was charged after waiving his right to get a lawyer and being questioned by police. His computer was found to have on it about 50 child pornographic images and two videos.

At Spencer’s first trial, he was convicted of possessing child pornography, but acquitted on distributing child pornography. The Crown appealed and the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ordered a second trial.

At the second trial, Spencer was convicted of distributing child pornography in 2015, but the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal set aside the conviction and ruled on June 28, 2017, a third trial would be an abuse of process.

In the unanimous decision, appeal court Justice Georgina Jackson wrote Spencer was under various court orders since his arrest and had never violated them. She noted Spencer was 19 at the time of his arrest and had no criminal record at that time.

“He has fulfilled all of the conditions imposed upon him,” Jackson wrote. “He has sought to rehabilitate himself and he has done so.

“In that regard, the protection of the public is secure… it would be an abuse of process to compel Mr. Spencer to face a third trial.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca