By Troy Gillard

Disturbing crime

Dangerous offender status sought for Eckville man who sexually abused children

Dec 14, 2019 | 1:26 PM

Red Deer, AB – Disturbing details were heard in Red Deer provincial court Friday afternoon of the sexual crimes an Eckville man committed involving children.

Among the victims of those crimes were the man’s daughter and niece.

The name of the man is subject to a publication ban in order to protect the identities of his victims.

The 35-year-old pleaded guilty in October to 26 counts of sexual assault, sexual contact with a minor, sexually counselling a minor, possessing child pornography, making/printing/publishing child pornography, and distributing/selling child pornography, and voyeurism.

He is currently in custody at the Calgary Remand Centre and appeared in court Friday via CCTV.

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According to an agreed statement of facts, in March 2018 an officer with the Queensland Police Service in Australia had been monitoring a child porn website when he came across a photo album that caught his attention. The officer then assumed a fake identity in order to make contact with the Canadian user who posted the photos.

The police officer later tracked the user’s location to Calgary and contacted the Southern Alberta Internet Child Exploitation Unit because he was concerned that children were being abused.

The American-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children also received a tip regarding child porn images that had been uploaded from a user in Calgary. Those images were also forwarded Southern Alberta ICE unit.

Through their investigation, police determined child porn images had also been uploaded from a home Fox Creek. Upon searching that home officers noticed furniture items similar to ones that appeared in some of the uploaded child porn images.

Investigators eventually zeroed in on the Eckville man as being the one who had shared the images. Police set up surveillance of his home and arrested him on January 10, 2019.

Several electronic devices were seized by police, including a laptop computer, hard drives, USB drives and cellphones. On them were more than a million photos and videos, including more than 300,000 on one device alone, depicting child pornography and various acts of sexual assault.

The children victimized in those crimes, which took place over the course of nearly a decade, were between the ages of two and 11 years.

Several people in the courtroom became visibly upset while hearing details of the crimes and left the room while they were still being read.

The man appeared mostly emotionless on screen, though he appeared to wipe away a few tears towards the end of Friday proceedings.

Carolyn Ayre, a special Crown prosecutor from Calgary, told Judge Jim Hunter that she is seeking dangerous offender status due to the man’s repetitious pattern of behaviour. A report will be completed within 60 days.

The case will return to court on Feb. 12.

Meantime, the Eckville man is accused using a device to access the internet just over a week after his arrest in January, thereby violating the terms of his release. He will face trial after pleading not guilty to two counts of breach of recognizance. Trial dates have not yet been scheduled.