Trial begins for tennis instructor charged with internet luring

Evidence got underway Tuesday at the trial of a former tennis instructor accused of internet luring involving a former student.

Aaron Byron Cumberland, 28, formerly of Kentville, is also charged with invitation to sexual touching and making sexually explicit material available to the same complainant, a boy under the age of 16.

Cumberland was charged in November 2017 after a complaint to police about electronic messages the boy received.

Const. Victoria Colford, who was a member of the RCMP’s internet child exploitation unit at the time, told the jury in Kentville Supreme Court that she received a call from an RCMP member in the Annapolis Valley on Nov. 6, 2017.

“He had received a complaint from the parents of (a teenage boy) who said their son was having a conversation with an adult known to them that became sexual in nature,” she testified.

Colford said she started to make internet searches for Cumberland, and found a Facebook profile under the name of Aaron Hiro Cumberland.

Cumberland is accused of having the conversation with the boy over Facebook.

Police applied for a warrant for his arrest on Nov. 17 and issued a news release about the warrant. Cumberland contacted Halifax Regional Police that night from a Bedford address and was arrested.

The eight-man, five-woman jury will continue hearing evidence Wednesday.