Judge orders report on child sex offender
A judge said Wednesday she wants more information about an Edmonton man convicted of sexual crimes against children before deciding whether to accept a joint submission on sentencing.
The Crown and defence have argued that Timothy Michael Lidkea should get a 4-1/2 year sentence as a result of several convictions.
Lidkea, 38, pleaded guilty July 24 to sexually touching a fiveyear-old girl and luring an undercover officer who was posing as a 13-year-old girl online. He also admitted to possessing a large collection of child pornography, luring unidentified children online, and luring to facilitate sex and child prostitution.
On January 4, provincial court Judge Marilena Carminati reserved her decision so that she could consider the joint submission.
However, after asking both defence lawyer Mark Jordan and Crown prosecutor Craig Krieger further questions Wednesday about how they came to the agreement, she decided to order a psychological report on Lidkea.
According to an agreed statement of facts entered with the court during a hearing in early January, Lidkea’s contact with the five-year-old occurred over three months in 2014.
Lidkea’s online chats with the undercover police officer, during which he sent explicit photos and asked sexual questions of the person he believed to be a young teen, also happened in 2014.
When police executed a warrant at his house, officers found more than 4,000 copies of child porn images and 863 videos, including duplicates, that qualify as child porn on his computer.
Court heard that during 2013 and 2014, Lidkea distributed many of these images to 100 people he chatted with online, many of whom were boys or girls between the ages of 10 and 13.
Court heard Lidkea used the chats to attempt to facilitate sexual contact with minors, or to create and distribute child pornography.
He also chatted with adults to facilitate sexual abuse of children. In one conversation, he told another adult he preferred children over the age of eight.
On Wednesday, Carminati asked Krieger to try to get more information about the ratio of how many of the 100 people Lidkea was chatting to online were children before she passes sentence at a hearing scheduled for April 4.