Man admits making child porn involving two 14-year-old girls at ‘crack shack’

The surviving suspect in an Edmonton child porn case entered a guilty plea in the midst of a retrial that had been ordered by Canada’s highest court, but plans to challenge the constitutionality of the minimum penalty for the conviction.

On Tuesday, Shane Gordon Rollison, 50, admitted to one count of making, printing, publishing or possessing to publish child porn in relation to videos that involved two 14-year-old girls, Rollison and another man, Donald Jerry Barabash.

According to an agreed statement of facts entered with the court on Friday, the two girls were runaways from a youth centre who travelled to Edmonton together in late March or early April 2008. The teens, whose identities are protected by a court-ordered publication ban, were both dealing with substance abuse issues.

They wound up at the innercity Edmonton home of Barabash, which both girls described to the court as a typical “crack shack” where various people came and went, buying drugs from Barabash, who was then 60 years old.

Barabash, Rollison — then 41 years old — and the two girls went on a crack cocaine “binge” that lasted for two to three days. During the binge, the girls engaged in sex acts with one another that were filmed by Barabash. Rollison appears in all three videos submitted as evidence.

The videos were later seized by investigators, and entered as evidence with the court. According to the agreed facts, Rollison was aware the girls were 14, but the offence occurred one month before the age of consent was raised to 16 in Canada.

When the case went to trial in 2012, both men were acquitted because although some of the sex tapes were child porn, they were made consensually and for private use, an exception allowed under a controversial 2001 Supreme Court decision. However, the case made its way up the chain of appeals, and was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada because it found the trial judge had failed to consider if the underlying relationship between the men and young girls was exploitive.

A new trial was supposed to start last September. However, when Barabash didn’t show up to court, police officers discovered him deceased in his home. His death was ruled non-criminal. The trial for Rollison began Jan. 30, but a guilty plea was entered on the second day.

Although Rollison has admitted to the offence, his defence lawyer Diana Goldie will argue against the mandatory minimum penalty the federal government imposes for child pornography offences.

A sentencing decision is scheduled for May 24.