Ex-teacher gets jail time for sexually exploiting student

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This article was published 15/01/2025 (258 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KILLARNEY — A former Turtle Mountain School Division teacher was sentenced to jail time Tuesday after pleading guilty to sexual exploitation involving a teenage student dating back to 2010.

Troy Innes was sentenced by provincial associate chief Judge Donovan Dvorak to six months of jail time and 18 months of supervised probation. Innes pleaded guilty at an earlier date to one count of sexual exploitation — defined as an act where a person in a position of authority or trust touches or invites a young person to touch them for a sexual purpose.

RCMP began investigating a complaint about Innes in May 2021. The offences happened between January and December 2010. He was arrested on Dec. 22, 2021 and charged with two counts of sexual assault and single counts of luring and sexual exploitation. He was 39 when RCMP announced his arrest on Jan. 4, 2022.

Turtle Mountain School Division is located in Killarney, where the sentencing was held. A May 2012 Brandon Sun article stated Innes taught at Boissevain School, where he also coached the boys baseball team.

The facts of the case were outlined during the sentencing. Dvorak pointed out Innes was teaching Grade 9 to Grade 12 classes when the crime occurred and had taught the student and mentored her on a project.

The teacher-student relationship turned inappropriate as the then-17-year-old student and adult man began to meet privately and kissed on several occasions. The student also sent Innes a sexually explicit picture of herself in underwear.

At the time of the crime, the minimum sentence for sexual exploitation was 45 days in jail. The current minimum is one year.

Dvorak sentenced Innes to six months after pointing out it is necessary to condemn the behaviour and deter people from committing similar crimes. He added the court must send a message that children are not to be considered as potential sexual partners by people in a position of trust or authority.

Dvorak said he also had to take into account that Innes had pleaded guilty and has not reoffended in the roughly 15 years since the crime happened.

Innes was teaching at Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School in Brandon when he was arrested. He was coach of the boys baseball team there for several years.

Innes was released from custody on conditions. He was placed on administrative leave from his job pending the outcome of the legal proceedings, the Brandon School Division said at the time of his arrest.

Along with the jail sentence and probation order, Innes was ordered to provide a DNA sample and to have no contact with the former student.

A search of a provincial registry late Wednesday morning showed his teaching certificate was still in “good standing.”

— Brandon Sun