Man admits to directing abuse of boy over Internet

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This article was published 01/06/2017 (3334 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As a Winnipeg man admitted to possessing child pornography and directing the live-streamed abuse of a young boy over the Internet, law enforcement officials across the border still haven’t been able to find and rescue the child.

Greg Alan Jamieson, 45, pleaded guilty Thursday to four child pornography-related offences. He admitted to possessing a collection of images of infants and toddlers who were being abused, and to using an online video chat service to encourage a male caregiver in the U.S. to sexually abuse a boy who appeared to be between six and eight years old.

The U.S. department of Homeland Security got involved in an investigation to track down the child and the American suspect, and that investigation is still active, Crown attorney Katie Dojack told court Thursday.

“Unfortunately, to date the child has not been located,” she said.

Provincial court Judge Dale Harvey accepted Jamieson’s guilty pleas, which the accused offered via a video appearance from Milner Ridge Correctional Centre.

Jamieson was arrested after he uploaded a child porn image to a chat room site in June 2016 and the Winnipeg Police Service’s Internet Child Exploitation unit learned the image had come from a local Internet protocol address. When police searched his St. James home in November 2016, they found several child porn images as well as the Skype conversation in which Jamieson had posed as a woman to encourage the U.S. man to sexually abuse the boy.

He was initially released on bail, but he violated his bail conditions by continuing to work in a retail job where he had Internet access and came into contact with young people. He is set to be sentenced in November.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay