MAN JAILED FOR VIDEOS OF KIDS

Calgary man who used cellphone to film naked children at Southland Leisure Centre gets one year.

A32-year-old Calgary man has been jailed one year for taking cellphone videos of nude children in the family change room at Southland Leisure Centre last year.

Provincial court Judge Catherine Skene on Monday imposed the sentence plus two years probation against Elden Patrick White, after accepting a joint submission by Crown prosecutor Nadine Nesbitt and defence lawyer Simon Lord.

White pleaded guilty to voyeurism for making a recording of a person in a circumstance when they should expect privacy for the incident at the recreation facility on April 17, 2011.

Nesbitt, reading an agreed statement of facts in court, said a father who had taken his six-year-old daughter to the change room noticed White hanging around the showers while holding a cellphone.

The father became concerned and reported the incident to a staff member, who confronted White.

White said he was there with his sister and her child and, when the staffer tried to page the sister, White ran out of the building, past his vehicle and into a residential neighbourhood with other staff members in pursuit.

White was eventually found hiding in an industrial garbage bin and was held by the staff members, who also seized his cellphone.

“White eventually admitted to police that he was lying and that he had taken the video of the naked six-year-old girl for a sexual purpose,” Nesbitt said, reading from the admitted facts.

Surveillance showed White hanging around the door of the change room, which required a code number to enter, then on two occasions followed groups of parents and children inside.

Forensic examination found five videos, all less than a minute long, that White took with his cellphone in the family changing room of the leisure centre that day and the previous day. Three of the videos showed children in bathing suits and two showed naked children.

One of the clips, several seconds long, showed a girl about six years old standing naked on a bench in the room.

Lord said his client worked in the restaurant business, but his manager “let him go” a few days before the incident for which he was arrested.

He said White has had a dreadful years since the incident and wants his client to be seen by a doctor for depression.

Two other charges of making and possessing child pornography were dropped upon his guilty plea.