Crown seeks eight years for man who lured teens online

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While on probation for sexually assaulting a pre-teen girl, a Manitoba man continued to lure a dozen more teen victims online, pressuring them to pose nude and perform sex acts, a judge heard Thursday.

Patrick Sinclair, 27, has pleaded guilty to internet luring, extortion, and making, possessing and distributing child pornography.

Sinclair made contact with the victims, all but one of whom lived in the United States, through online chat groups before moving to Skype, where he secretly recorded them as they gave in to his sexual demands.

“He was able to find children on his own and made images from them,” said Crown attorney Michelle Bright, who recommended provincial court Judge Alain Huberdeau sentence Sinclair to eight years in prison.

“These are real people who experienced real trauma. These images and videos were all produced as a result of him luring the children online. The behaviour itself is that of an online predator.”

Sinclair was sentenced in October 2015 to two years supervised probation in connection to his molestation of a pre-teen girl. By that time, he had already been luring children online for nearly 31/2 years, behaviour that would continue until his arrest in October 2017.

Police seized Sinclair’s electronic devices, which were found to contain 80 pornographic images of the victims and 37 videos. Police were ultimately able to identify only four of the 12 girls, the youngest of whom was 13.

According to an agreed statement of facts provided to court, Sinclair threatened to post nude pictures of one victim online if she did not submit to his demand for more pictures, sending her a picture he had secretly taken of her, including all her social media contact information, to bolster his threat.

Sinclair made a similar threat to another victim, who contacted police in the U.S. The girl provided police with Sinclair’s first name and said he was from Winnipeg. Investigators ultimately traced his IP address to his rural Manitoba home.

Court heard Sinclair has been diagnosed with intellectual disability disorder and autism spectrum disorder. Bright argued Sinclair’s cognitive deficits did not impair his ability to distinguish right from wrong, and described his manipulation of the victims as “cold and calculated.”

“This accused presents on ongoing danger to the public,” Bright said. “He made decisions over and over again to offend against children.”

When arrested, Sinclair minimized his actions, telling police: “I’m pretty sure none of the girls are dead.”

Sinclair continues to live with his foster parents and has never held a job, court heard.

“I don’t dispute he has an intellectual disability, but he is also generally not a motivated person,” Bright said. “He doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

Sinclair’s sentencing hearing will resume May 21, with submissions from the defence.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca