Victim in C. Saanich sex case alerted police

One of the victims in a case where a Central Saanich man is accused of 29 sex-related and extortion charges said she went to the police with information about his identity just days before he was arrested.

The girl said that in early June 2016, she received sexually graphic Facebook messages and repeated harassing phone calls from a person named Brooke Simper who threatened to Photoshop pictures of her face onto a naked body and post it online. The person told her to make a voice recording of her moaning, otherwise he would post photos of her breasts on the Stelly’s Secondary School Facebook page.

The girl replied that she knew he didn’t have photos of her breasts, but the online abuse continued.

During some of the phone calls, made through Facebook Messenger, the person allegedly threatened to kill the girl and said he knew her car licence plate number and where to find her.

The girl suspected Brooke Simper was a pseudonym, and she noticed spelling mistakes similar to those in sexually explicit and unwanted messages she had received from a classmate few years before.

She and a friend went to Central Saanich police with the information on June 23.

“We said: ‘The threats are the same, the spelling is the same,’ ” she said.

Seamus Weeks, 18, was arrested six days later.

Weeks is facing charges relating to child luring, sexual touching, making and possessing child pornography and extortion involving at least 15 teens.

The girl said six of the 15 teens interviewed by the police are her friends.

The girl, whose name cannot be published under a courtordered publication ban, said the experience has traumatized her.

“On my last day of school, I’m trying to have fun with my friends and I just broke down, I had a meltdown,” she said.

The girl said she was not aware Weeks had been arrested until the Times Colonist reported it on Friday. Central Saanich police did not make the arrest public, citing the sensitivity of the investigation.

Weeks has been released on several conditions, including to abstain from drugs or alcohol, avoid areas where children are likely to be present, avoid contacting the victims and stay off the Internet and electronic devices.

Weeks’s next court appearance is set for Dec. 1.