Ex-tennis instructor sentenced for sex offences
A Supreme Court judge in Kentville has sentenced a former youth tennis instructor to an 18-month sentence and two years of probation for luring one of his former students online.
Aaron Byron Cumberland, 30, formerly of Kentville, was sentenced Tuesday.
He won't serve any time in prison because of 350 days spent in custody before his trial. That was a recommendation from Crown attorney Peter Dostal.
A jury found Cumberland guilty in October of the luring charge, as well as one count each of invitation to sexual touching and making sexually explicit material available to a minor.
Dostal said in his submissions that the the sharing of the intimate images and asking the teen online if he wanted to touch Cumberland sexually “should be considered a form of grooming of the young person.”
Defence lawyer Jonathan Cuming agreed with the 18-month sentence, but had initially argued for a probationary period of only 15 months. After initial submissions and discussions in court, though, he agreed that two years was appropriate.
Cumberland is also banned from playgrounds, pools and other areas where children under the age of 16 could reasonably be expected to be present, except public parks and libraries for 10 years, and from all social media for the same time period.
In accepting the recommendation, Justice Gregory Warner said “the exchanges I saw between Mr. Cumberland and (the victim) were clearly of a grooming nature.”
He said that “all sexual offences are very serious, whether or not they involve sexual contact, in terms of their potential impact upon the victims, their families and the community.”
The boy testified at trial that Cumberland had offered to help him with a resume, but later asked him in messages on Facebook in November 2017 if he would do anything sexual in return.
The boy's mother was monitoring her son's social media accounts, and she and her husband saw sexually explicit messages and photos on their son's Facebook messenger account from Cumberland.
They took over the discussion from their son and pretended to be him, recording the messages on video because they were disappearing shortly after being read. They then contacted RCMP.
The son testified that Cumberland sent him photos of girls and a man naked from the neck down.
The convictions came at the third trial for Cumberland. The first, in May 2019, ended in a mistrial after new evidence came to light. The judge hearing the case said the evidence would cause prejudice to the defence because it couldn't continue the trial without the opportunity to deal with that new evidence.
The second trial in September and October of last year also ended in a mistrial, after the jury couldn't reach a unanimous verdict.
After his arrest in November 2017, Cumberland was released on bail conditions that included surrendering his passport and not leaving Nova Scotia. Three weeks before a scheduled preliminary inquiry in June of 2018, though, he and two other people were arrested on the American side on the MaineNew Brunswick border and charged with unlawful entry to the United States.
American officials said at the time that the three didn't cross the border at a designated entry point and gave false names.
After pleading guilty in Maine, Cumberland was returned to Nova Scotia, where his bail was revoked. He remained in custody until after his first trial.