Man gets time served on luring charges

A Kentville man walked out of court a free man Thursday after essentiallybeing sentenced to time served for trying to convince the 15-year-old daughter of a sex worker to have sex with him and send him explicit photos, asking her to find other young girls who would be willing, and offering another underage teen money for sex.

Bradley Lloyd Clarke, 42, pleaded guilty last month in Kentville provincial court to communicating with a person under the age of 18 for the purpose of obtaining sexual services, luring a child under the age of 18, luring a child under the age of 16, two counts of obtaining or trying to obtain sexual services for consideration, and failing to comply with a condition of an undertaking.

The counts involve two women and two teens. The Crown had been asking for a sentence of six years and 10 months, while the defence asked for between two years and two and a half years.

Between December 2021 and January 2022, Clarke contacted a woman on social media whom he didn’t know and offered her $300 to watch him masturbate online, but she refused.

Crown attorney Alicia Kennedy asked for a sentence of 30 days, but Judge Ronda van der Hoek instead imposed a fine of $1,000.

Between January and February 2022, Clarke responded to an online escort ad and paid a woman $600 for two sexual encounters. The woman was someone he had known in his younger years as a friend and they had recently reconnected.

The Crown sought a threemonth sentence for that offence, with the judge instead imposing a $2,000 fine.

In the same time period, he contacted a 17-year-old girl on Facebook whom he didn’t know but with whom he had mutual social media contacts.

He messaged her and offered her $500 for sex, telling her he was only 24 years old. She told him that was too old and blocked him on social media.

The Crown had asked for three years on that charge, but the judge said that was excessive for the level of the offence and lack of grooming or contact, and imposed a sentence of six months.

Also during the same time period, having met the daughter of his old friend who introduced him as a family friend, Clarke contacted the girl online, and they spoke almost daily for a period of time. She was 15, but he offered her $200 for sex and asked her to have phone sex and send him intimate photos.

The girl refused, so he asked her if she knew any other girls who would have sex for money. He also offered the teen alcohol, drugs and money if she would find other girls to have sex with him, which she also refused.

This was all taking place while Clarke was under a court order not to have unsupervised contact with young people.

The Crown asked for a sentence of three and half years, but van der Hoek imposed a sentence of two years consecutive to the other six-month punishment.

However, because Clarke was in custody since his arrest in May 2022, he received credit of 1.5 days for each day in custody, which worked out to just over two years and nine months of credit, so he was released. Because the sentence of more than two years was a federal one, van der Hoek could not impose a period of probation.

The investigation against Clarke on the charges was happening at the same time he was facing other similar charges, but those were stayed because too much