The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
PRAISE FOR KERRY GARDAI AS SEX TOURIST JAILED
CANADIAN prosecutors have praised the Gardaí in Kerry for the vital role they played in apprehending a sex tourist who flew into Ireland to abuse a 14-year-old girl.
Last week in an Edmonton court, Canadian Jashua Tremblay (34) of Fort MacMurray, Alberta, was sentenced to four and half years in jail for ‘grooming’ and molesting the girl. He had pleaded guilty to three charges related to luring to facilitate child pornography, luring for sexual contact as well as flying to Ireland for actual sexual contact with a child.
He met the Irish girl – who was then aged 13 – in an online forum and 14 months after he first preyed on her he made the first of two trips to Ireland where he booked them into hotels and a holiday home. Tremblay engaged in sex with the victim during both visits, which took place during the school holidays in July and October 2013 when the girl was 14.
It was during his second trip to Ireland that neighbours living close to a holiday home Tremblay had rented in the Portmagee area noticed inappropriate behaviour between the two, became suspicious and notified the gardaí.
The girl – from one of Kerry’s main towns – had told her father she was staying with a friend during Tremblay’s visits. By the time Gardaí were alerted Tremblay had already left Ireland. He was subsequently arrested in another jurisdiction and was deported back to Canada where he was charged under Canada’s sex tourism laws.
The child sex tourism law, which came into effect in 1997, means Canadians can be prosecuted in Canada if they sexually exploit children in other countries. According to an “agreed statement of facts” presented to the court Tremblay had convinced her they were in a legitimate relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend.
She came to believe she was in love with him and believed she would move to Canada and marry him when she turned 18. He also told her he wanted “100 kids”. During the two years he preyed on her using online messages, at least one letter and audio messages. He also sent naked pictures of himself; encouraged the girl to send explicit images of herself and sent audio messages about sexual act he wanted them to perform.
Crown Prosecutor Craig Krieger praised the Gardaí for what he described as their ‘thorough investigation.” “I really want to give credit to the police in Ireland. Even though they probably knew from the beginning there was a slim chance of them seeing the accused face to face... they put a tremendous amount of effort to prove the identity of who this adult was who had come to violate one of their kids,” he said.
“Normally only Ireland would be able to prosecute him,” Krieger said outside court. “But because of this special provision, we were able to prosecute him here for the sexual contact with a child.”
“Under the old system, that only could have been prosecuted in Ireland,” he said. “So they would have had to wait for him to appear there somehow someday which probably would have been a slim hope.”
Tremblay is the first person to be convicted of child sex tourism charges in Alberta.