Crown wants 20-year sentence for man who sexually abused young girls

A Winnipeg man who sexually abused his young niece and another girl before it was discovered he was making plans to travel to Australia to meet a teenage girl he had been grooming online should go to prison for 20 years, a judge was told Wednesday.

The 34-year-old man pleaded guilty earlier this year to two counts of sexual interference, two counts of making child sexual abuse material and child luring for offences spanning a decade. He cannot be named to protect the identities of his victims.

“(The man) behaved opportunistically and predatorily against his victims,” Crown attorney Larissa Campbell told provincial court Judge Kusham Sharma. “His degree of responsibility is extraordinarily high … But for his guilty plea, there is little to mitigate his conduct.”

According to an agreed statement of facts previously provided to court, the man was living with friends in 2014 when, over two years, he repeatedly recorded himself sexually abusing a friend’s daughter, beginning when she was two years old.

In 2020, the man was living with his sister when he recorded himself sexually abusing his six-year-old niece.

The girl told her mother about the abuse in 2021 and the man was arrested, but charges against him were stayed in May 2022.

That same month, 10 child sexual abuse images were uploaded to an instant messaging platform from an account later confirmed to belong to the accused.

Winnipeg police arrested the man in August 2023 and seized two laptop computers and two cellphones from him, which were later found to contain videos of him sexually abusing the two victims and other child sexual abuse material.

A review of the man’s cellphones found that in August and September 2023 he had searched for “how to get to Australia,” “how to travel with a criminal record,” and “work in Australia.”

The man has prior convictions for drug and weapon offences.

Further investigation uncovered a cache of communications between the man and someone who identified herself as a 15-year-old girl named Kaitlyn.

“Throughout the chats, the accused repeatedly acknowledged Kaitlyn’s age,” says the agreed statement of facts.

The man sent the girl a video of himself masturbating and “Kaitlyn” sent him a picture of a girl in a school uniform and another of a girl with her breasts exposed. Neither picture showed the girl’s face.

“I’m just a pedo in love with his kid girlfriend,” the man said in one message. “But your age doesn’t matter to me. Someday you’ll be my wife and you will always be my little girl.”

Notes on his cellphone revealed travel plans such as buying a “burner phone,” changing SIM cards and “wiping” his travel phone of all incriminating data so border agents “can’t invade your privacy.”

Another note detailed what the man knew about the girl, including her favourite colour, flower, food and ring size.

The man received notice in February 2024 that his visa application had been rejected.

Investigators were able to locate a man identified as the targeted girl’s brother, but not the girl.

“Ultimately, the Crown cannot prove whether the person who communicated with the accused as ‘Kaitlyn’ was a child or an adult posing as a child,” says the agreed statement of facts.

That “Kaitlyn” might have been an adult is irrelevant, Campbell said Wednesday. “All that matters is that (the offender) believed she was (a child).”

The man was in custody in October 2024 when a woman who was mushroom hunting in Scanterbury found a duffel bag containing a gun, drugs, several electronic devices and USB sticks. A review of the electronic devices uncovered more evidence connected to the two child victims and “Kaitlyn,” and several instructional videos on how to access the dark web.

According to a pre-sentence report provided to court, the offender was himself a victim of childhood sexual abuse, has struggled with substance abuse and in recent years has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder for which he is now receiving medication.

Campbell said there was no evidence before the court that the man’s disorder impacted his criminal actions.

According to the report, the man continues to minimize his actions and blame others.

The man’s sister provided a written victim impact statement to court describing how his abuse of her daughter has forever changed their lives.

“I saw the light in her eyes disappear,” the woman wrote. “We didn’t just lose trust with one person — we lost trust with the world.”

Defence lawyer Tony Kavanagh recommended Sharma sentence the man to 15 years in prison, citing his troubled upbringing and mental challenges.

Sharma said she was “struggling” to accept anything less than a 20-year prison sentence as appropriate.

“We’re talking about serious sexual misconduct against children,” Sharma said. “The facts are really egregious.”

Sharma will sentence the man at a later date. He remains in custody.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca