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B.C. police can't keep up with boom in online child sexual exploitation
B.C. is a major Canadian hotspot for images of child sex abuse. Experts say
the perpetrators are hard to find — and even more difficult to prosecute.
And even if they are prosecuted, Canada's criminal-friendly justice system will slap their wrists and send them back out to abuse more children.
Author of the article: Tom Eley and Clarissa Kurniawan
Published Aug 07, 2023 • The Vancouver Sun
Cpl. Sharen Leung of the B.C. RCMP internet child exploitation unit (left) with Staff Sgt. Lyndsay O’Ruairc.
PHOTO BY JASON PAYNE /PNG
Online child exploitation is increasing across Canada and police say they don’t have the resources to investigate the growing number of reported cases as predators target children on social media.
Sgt. Christian Lowe of the Vancouver Police Department said his internet child exploitation unit receives more complaints about images of child sexual abuse than sexual assault complaints.
According to Statistics Canada, B.C. accounted for 54 per cent of the country’s 7,141 reported incidents of making and distributing such images in 2021. In 2022, B.C. RCMP dealt with 9,600 cases. In the first three months of this year alone, there were 5,790 cases.
So, 54% of 7141 = <4000 for 2021
> doubles to 9600 in 2022
> doubles to 23,000 in 2023 - nearly 6 times the number for 2021.
Statistics Canada says 7,743 children in Canada were confirmed to be victims of online sexual violation between 2014 and 2020.
And, undoubtedly, this is a drop in the bucket.
The perpetrators are hard to find — and even more difficult to prosecute.
“When it comes to child pornography, these kids don’t even know they’re being victimized. It’s just part of their life,” said Lowe. “These children are not only being sexually assaulted but they are being recorded and put on the internet for the rest of their lives.”
To access hundreds, if not thousands, of these images, a predator only needs common social media apps and websites, said Noel Sinclair, a Yukon Crown prosecutor for 14 years.
“It is one of the most disturbing aspects of my job as a criminal prosecutor, work in homicide and high-risk offenders, violent offenders, sexual assault, all of those things … and it’s not unusual for collections to include images and video recordings at those extreme levels of depravity,” he said.
Including toddlers and even animals. There is no level of depravity too low for a paedophile.
Despite the growing number of incidents, very few proceed to court, said Janine Benedet, a University of B.C. law professor specializing in this area.
Astonishing! 1.4% result in charges.
In 2020, only 63 of 4,201 reported cases, or 1.4 per cent, resulted in charges, she said. “So, nothing.”
Investigations into images of child sexual abuse are resource-intensive, and a giant misconception surrounds the sinister nature of these pictures and videos and how they are created, Benedet said: “People think it is just possessing pictures, not actual child sexual abuse, but this is actual child sexual abuse.”
Feds do nothing
It's hard to believe that Canada is just getting to the level where they are beginning to recognize child pornography as child rape and child sexual abuse and child exploitation. We should have been here 15 or 20 years ago.
In the past 8 years, the liberal government of Canada has not passed a single child protection bill, nor have they increased budgets for law enforcement in the field of protecting children from this exploding atrocity. They have thrown a generation of kids to the wolves.
In the past 8 years, the liberal government of Canada has not passed a single child protection bill, nor have they increased budgets for law enforcement in the field of protecting children from this exploding atrocity. They have thrown a generation of kids to the wolves.
The biggest problem facing Crown prosecutors is identifying who is behind the screen, said Kamloops-area MP Frank Caputo, who is the federal Conservative’s justice critic. “Our experts are overburdened. Without an expert report, it can be difficult to prove.”
Why is B.C. seemingly so overrepresented as a producer of child sex abuse material?
Caputo said B.C.’s high case numbers perhaps could be attributed to how such crimes are reported.
“Some regions might have a higher number of detections or perhaps a higher number of investigations per capita,” he said. “I’d be utterly shocked if B.C. (actually) had higher numbers. This is a pervasive problem that spans socio-economic divisions.”
Cpl. Sharen Leung, who works in the B.C. RCMP internet child exploitation unit, agrees B.C. may be overrepresented partly due to how different police units report and record crimes.
More on this story at The Vancouver Sun.
Australian police arrest 19 for child sex abuse offences after FBI tip-off
Australian police say they have rescued 13 children after investigation
into ‘sophisticated’ online child abuse network.
Australian police say most of the suspects arrested in a crackdown on an international online
child sex abuse network had careers requiring technical knowledge of computers and the Internet
[File: Australian Federal Police via AP]
Published On 8 Aug 2023
Australian authorities have announced child sex abuse charges against 19 men after a tip-off from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) uncovered a “sophisticated” international paedophile network.
Australian Federal Police Commander Helen Schneider said on Tuesday that 13 children had been rescued from the network, which allegedly used encryption and other means to share child exploitation material on the dark web.
“Criminals using encryption and the dark web are a challenge for law enforcement, but Operation Bakis shows that when we work together we can bring alleged offenders before the courts,” Schneider said.
“Viewing, distributing or producing child abuse material is a horrific crime, and the lengths that these alleged offenders went to in order to avoid detection makes them especially dangerous – the longer they avoid detection the longer they can perpetuate the cycle of abuse.”
Police said most of the suspects, aged between 32 and 81 years old, had careers requiring technical knowledge of computers and the Internet. Some of the accused are alleged to have produced child sex abuse material themselves.
Two of the Australian men, including a public servant in the Australian Capital Territory, have been convicted and given prison sentences while the others are awaiting trial.
Australian police began investigating the network after two FBI agents investigating child sex abuse offences were shot dead in 2021.
FBI special agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were killed while executing a search warrant on the Florida apartment of 55-year-old IT worker David Lee Huber.
Authorities in the US have made 79 arrests and convicted 43 people so far as part of their investigations.
“The complexity and anonymity of these platforms means that no agency or country can fight these threats alone,” FBI Legal Attaché Nitiana Mann said.
“As we continue to build bridges through collaboration and teamwork, we can ensure the good guys win and the bad guys lose.”
Good grief! This is not about "good guys and bad guys". This is about horrific evil befalling our children at the hands of demonic people.
The latest arrests come a week after Australian authorities charged a 45-year-old former childcare worker with sexually abusing 91 children in what has been described as one of the worst child sex abuse cases in the country’s history.
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Paedophile Christopher Behn admits 21 further sex abuse offences
Published 8 Aug 2023
Christopher Behn travelled to countries in south-east Asia to carry out abuse, the National Crime Agency said
By Orla Moore
BBC News, Essex
A convicted paedophile has admitted 21 further offences of sexually abusing young boys while overseas.
Christopher Behn, 68, from Colchester, is already serving a nine-year prison term for abusing 11 children in Myanmar in 2016.
The new charges related to the abuse of boys, aged six to 11, in Vietnam.
Behn, who police described as a "committed and prolific transnational child sex offender", is due to be sentenced next month.
The retired engineer appeared in Chelmsford Crown Court by video link from HMP Albany on the Isle of Wight.
Global Paedo ring
He was arrested at Gatwick Airport in February 2020, after investigators identified him as appearing in images with another member of the network - a Dutch national who was convicted in the Netherlands.
Behn was detained by officers before he could board a flight to Vietnam.
Photographs taken by Behn, showing him abusing children, were recovered from encrypted electronic devices.
His travel history showed he had visited Vietnam 18 times since 2006, along with trips to Thailand, Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, India, and Myanmar, the NCA said.
He and the Dutch national had also written diaries that described in graphic detail the abuse committed by the pair on many of these trips.
Christopher Behn and his network "conspired together via encrypted chats in the hope of hiding their horrific offending", the NCA said
In June this year, Behn was further charged with 23 counts of sexually assaulting a child and causing a child to engage in sexual activity between 2008 and 2018.
He denied two of the charges, but will not face trial on those counts.
Phil Eccles, NCA operations manager, said Behn was "a committed and prolific transnational child sex offender, who dedicated years of his life to this criminal network".
"Behn and his like-minded friends conducted their offending in remote parts of the world and conspired together via encrypted chats in the hope of hiding their horrific offending from law enforcement," he said.
The agency said it had identified a further five men based in the UK believed to have links to the network and investigations were ongoing in a number of countries across Europe.
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