Niagara man gets five-year sentence for sex offences against children

A Niagara man who posed sleeping young boys and took pornographic pictures of them broke down in tears after being sentenced to five years behind bars.

In Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines on Monday, Timothy Dwyer pleaded guilty to a number of sex offences involving children including sexual interference and making child pornography.

The case began in November 2017, when Niagara Regional Police received information from the National Child Exploitation Co-ordination Centre regarding images of child pornography which had been uploaded from an IP address in St. Catharines.

Police executed a search warrant at Dwyer’s basement apartment and seized a cellphone and a desktop computer.

When confronted by police with the images, court was told, the 38-year-old man said he felt “physically ill, ashamed, heartbroken and completely destroyed.”

He gave police the identities of the young boys in the photographs, who were ages four and 12, who lived in eastern Canada.

In one series of photos, an erect penis is seen in the hands, mouth and buttock area of four-year-old as he slept on his stomach.

A forensic search of the defendant’s computer revealed a number of additional images of child pornography. Those images were of two brothers from St. Catharines.

In several shots, Dwyer’s face is clearly visible. Several shots depicted the defendant masturbating near a sleeping child.

Assistant Crown attorney Pat Vadacchino said the four victims have no memory of what happened to them since they were asleep.

“Hopefully, they don’t ever remember,” she said.

The mothers of the boys, however, continue to struggle with what happened to their sons.

“For the mothers of these children it has had a tremendous impact … an enormous sense of betrayal and shock,” said Judge Joesph De Filippis.

Defence counsel Brenda Sandulak told the judge her client is “mortified by his own behaviour.”

“He’s finding it hard to live with himself,” she said.

The judge said Dwyer’s guilty plea spared the children from having to testify at a trial, which could have been difficult as the boys have no recollection of what happened.

Dwyer, who did not have a criminal record, was sentenced to five years in a penitentiary. With credit for the time he had spent in pretrial custody, the equivalent of 250 days, he will serve a further four years and 114 days.

He is prohibited from having any contact with anyone under 16 unless an adult is present and cannot communicate with anyone under 16 on the internet for 10 years. Also, his name will appear of the national sex offender registry for life.