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New Brunswick Man Sentenced For Child Sexual Abuse Related Charges
91.9 The Bend, Tara Clow
Feb 19, 2021 8:51 PM
A 51-year-old man has been sentenced to three years in prison in connection with an investigation into child sexual abuse.
RCMP launched an investigation in early 2019. A home in Ammon was searched in May of the same year, and Wayne Wilfred Toole was arrested at the scene.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced this week to 36 months for possession of child pornography and 36 months for making available child pornography. The sentences will be served concurrently.
Toole has been added to the National Sex Offender Registry for life. Following his release from prison, he will have to follow conditions set out by the court, including not being around children.
The New Brunswick RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) Unit includes members from the Saint John Police Force and the Kennebecasis Regional Police Force. The RCMP’s Digital Forensic Services Unit, the RCMP Southeast District, and the RCMP National Child Exploitation Crime Centre were also involved in this investigation.
B.C. father charged, child rescued after Alberta sex abuse investigation
By Melissa Gilligan Global News
Posted February 19, 2021 9:04 am
Police have charged a father from British Columbia after he allegedly sent illicit photos of his young daughter to another person.
The Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team (ALERT) says its Calgary-based Internet Child Exploitation unit (ICE) identified a 37-year-old Fort St. John man who allegedly uploaded “child sex abuse materials” online and distributed them to another user.
“Further investigation revealed the photos were of the suspect’s young daughter,” ALERT said in a Friday news release.
The man, whose name isn’t being released to protect the identity of the victim, was arrested on Feb. 8.
“Our primary concern was the health and well-being of that child,” ALERT’s Sgt. Randy Poon said. “Once we received that tip, our investigators sprang into action and made an arrest as quickly as possible.”
ALERT said the victim and family members are receiving help from a variety of specialized support services and that children’s services is involved.
Police have seized a number of electronic devices for forensic analysis.
The 37-year-old man has been charged with making child pornography, distributing child pornography, possessing child pornography, accessing child pornography and several firearms offences.
“These types of crimes don’t respect borders or boundaries,” Cpl. Madonna Saunderson, RCMP B.C. North District, said. “The cooperation and enforcement between partners needs to be seamless and this file is an example of the efforts underway to detect, deter and investigate child exploitation files.”
Anyone with information about this case or any child exploitation situation is asked to contact their local police or to report their concern anonymously at cybertip.ca.
Student says RCMP officer talked her out of laying charges against alleged serial voyeur on campus
Woman says investigating officer spoke at length about suspect's 'good values,' potential
Rhianna Schmunk · CBC News ·
Posted: Feb 22, 2021 1:00 AM PT
The University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus is located north of downtown Kelowna. More than 10,000 students are enrolled at the university. (UBC Okanagan/Facebook)
Taylor had the feeling somebody was watching her.
She was sitting in a stall in the grey and blue bathroom in the Commons at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus, in the thick of midterm season on March 10, 2020.
She looked down and to her right. Beady, black camera lenses on a white iPhone were pointing up at her from underneath the divider from the stall next door.
"I said, 'What the f--k?' really loudly. Almost yelled," recalled Taylor, 22.
The phone snapped out of view.
Days later, after the RCMP questioned the suspect, Taylor made it clear she wanted to pursue charges.
At first, the investigating RCMP officer told her the case was solid. He told her the suspect confessed. But on a later call, Taylor said, the officer spoke at length about the suspect's "good values." His long-term girlfriend. His standing as an engineering student at UBCO.
The unsettling comments nearly derailed the case before it began, a scenario familiar to experts who say they've seen the criminal justice system prioritize an offender's potential over a victim's experience time and time again.
If three women hadn't stepped up to help her, Taylor doesn't know where her case might have ended up.
I. The washroom
Taylor was finishing her undergraduate sciences degree at UBCO last spring. The campus in Kelowna is the smaller of UBC's two main campuses, more than 400 kilometres east of the Vancouver grounds.
On that morning in March, Taylor was studying with a friend in UBCO's library for a complicated midterm the following morning when she left to use the co-ed bathroom in the Commons down the hall.
CBC News is not using her real name due to the sexual nature of the alleged offence.
After the iPhone disappeared from under the divider, Taylor rushed out of her stall, banged on the other person's door and demanded they come out.
The bathroom in the Commons at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus where Taylor says the suspect filmed her. (Name withheld)
She said there was a brief silence before a man responded.
"He said, 'Can I shit first?'"
Taylor washed her hands, texted her friend in the library to come help — "Some dude had his phone pointed at me," she wrote — and waited.
Taylor's friend hurried out of the library and joined her. After no more than five minutes, the man stepped out of the stall. He was a fellow student, around the women's age, and they later described him as disarmingly calm and sympathetic.
Taylor said she'd seen a phone filming her. The man said he was sorry that something like that had happened, but "had no idea" what she was talking about. He offered Taylor his iPhone and said she could look through it herself, if it would make her feel better.
She checked the camera roll and the recently deleted folder. Nothing.
Confused she didn't find anything, she handed it back, apologized and left with her friend. Too rattled to keep studying, Taylor emailed her professor and he agreed she could postpone the midterm.
Instead of writing the exam, she went to the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO) at the north end of campus the next morning for advice on what to do.
The Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO) at UBC Okanagan. The office supports those who have experienced sexual violence and decide to make a report to police or to the university. (Winston Szeto/CBC)
II. RCMP get involved
The RCMP got involved that Friday, March 13. Taylor and another friend recognized the man heading toward the Sunshine cafeteria in the administration building, not far from the Commons. Taylor, having considered advice from family and SVPRO, called campus security, who then called the RCMP.
Taylor agreed to meet a police officer at the SVPRO office late that afternoon to give a statement. When she walked through the doors, she was introduced to RCMP Const. Ryan Routley. They sat in a spare office for close to an hour while Taylor described the bathroom encounter. She said she was clear she "absolutely" wanted to move forward with charges.
She said when she finished her statement, the officer told her the statement had been strong and police would have "no problem" pressing charges.
"And then he sort of laughed and said, 'Oh, well, he's, you know, he's never going to get a job,'" Taylor said.
Kelowna RCMP dismisses 40 per cent of sexual assault claims over last 2 years, StatsCan says
She was thrown. One second, the officer was praising her, but the next, he seemed concerned about the effect a conviction might have on the suspect's future, Taylor said.
She pushed past the comment and made her way to the door, agreeing to stay in touch. She walked to her car, slid into the driver's seat and cried.
The following morning, a Saturday, as Taylor studied for her postponed midterm, the suspect walked into the RCMP detachment in downtown Kelowna to give Routley his own statement.
It wasn't until weeks later that Taylor says police told her the suspect not only admitted to filming her, but also allegedly confessed to filming women on campus at least five other times.
III. Investigator's focus on the suspect
In early April, Routley called Taylor to discuss next steps in the case. Taylor paced across her basement suite as the officer told her the suspect confessed in her case. She felt vindicated, but the officer did not mention any other victims, she said.
Just as he had during their first meeting, she said, Routley turned the conversation to the suspect.
"[Routley] mentioned having good values, like family values," she said. "He was sort of implying he's been brought up the right way, mentioned that he had a girlfriend, that he was an engineering student with a co-op.... He kept sort of reiterating he will never get a job."
She said the officer told her he believed the suspect had only filmed "for the thrill of it and getting away with it." She recalled Routley telling her he was not trying to dissuade her from pursuing charges, but did not think the suspect would reoffend.
"I just don't see him being one of those people," she said he told her.
There is much more on this story at CBC
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