Child pornographer jailed

Penticton man handed 5-year sentence for involvement in child porn ring

The target of an international child pornography investigation that led police to Penticton was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison.

Tyler David Walker, 21, pleaded guilty to one count of importing or distributing child pornography, and learned his fate from provincial court Judge Gale Sinclair.

Sinclair said determining a sentence is a “delicate balancing act,” weighing the denouncement of the crime with the rehabilitation of the offender.

“It is only if he can be rehabilitated that the community and our children will be a tiny bit safer,” Sinclair said.

The judge described Crown counsel Andrew Vandersluys’s sentencing recommendation of six to eight years’ jail as “somewhat excessive,” noting Walker was 20 and 21 years old at the time of the offences and had no prior criminal record.

Sinclair referenced a psychiatric report that said Walker had no major mental-health issues aside from pedophilia disorder, though the report said he “minimizes his role” in the crime.

“For example, believing that the children in the pornography were not harmed,” Sinclair said, citing the report.

Defence counsel Norm Yates argued for as little as two years in jail, noting his client “fully participated in the investigative process” and had been assaulted by other inmates in prison.

Minus enhanced credit for time served, Walker has 45 months remaining on his sentence. His name will appear on the national sex offender registry for 20 years.

Court heard previously a multijurisdictional investigation involving the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation division and the Toronto Police Service found Walker was involved in forming multiple online communities designed to distribute child pornography.

Walker created sites on what’s called the “dark web,” which makes online activity tough to trace.

Walker operated under multiple aliases, at one point introducing himself online as “Drax,” saying he was “a mad lover of little girls.”

He took part in multiple conversations with other users, one in which Walker discusses a little girl living on his street. He would also discuss preferences of age and discussed with another user sex acts they would commit if they adopted a child together.

Walker acted as a moderator in online child porn communities until he decided to collaborate with other users on his own site, which garnered 2,585 new members within a matter of days.

He was arrested while leaving his residence on March 15, 2017. Police located his computer, and Walker was found to be logged in under a known alias at the time.