Man, woman face child-porn charges

A West Shore man and woman have been charged with making child pornography two years ago.

A preliminary hearing on the case got underway this week in Western Communities provincial court.

The identities of the man and woman and their relationship to each other are protected by a publication ban. The identity of the alleged victim is also protected by a court order.

Seven charges were sworn before a justice of the peace on Nov. 23, 2018.

The woman is charged with making child pornography between Feb. 11 and Dec. 14, 2017, sexually assaulting a person under the age of 16 years, sexually touching a young person and inviting the young person to touch her own body for a sexual purpose.

The man has been charged with making, accessing and possessing child pornography.

The offences are alleged to have taken place in Langford between Feb. 11 and April 19, 2017.

Evidence heard at the inquiry is also under a publication ban.

The case is among 17 child pornography files being investigated by West Shore RCMP since January 2018.

The investigations are in various stages. Some have resulted in charges, while officers are still gathering evidence in other cases, said West Shore RCMP spokeswoman Const. Nancy Saggar.

Many of the investigations start when the RCMP’s Integrated Child Exploitation Unit passes on information that some of its targets are in the West Shore area, Saggar said. ICE investigators sift through child pornography chat rooms and identify Canadian suspects, then identify the location of the IP addresses with the help of internet providers.

Having an address is just the beginning, Saggar said. West Shore RCMP might have to conduct surveillance to determine who at a given address is accessing the information and on what device.

Officers must gather enough evidence to persuade a judge to authorize a search warrant. When they do raid an address, investigators seize laptops, phones, USB drives, hard drives and any other electronics that may contain illegal images, Saggar said.

“These investigations are super time consuming and resource heavy,” she said. The RCMP tech crimes unit analyzes the devices and can restore images that have been deleted or hidden.

The number of investigations does not mean there are 17 suspects actively viewing child pornography, she said.

There’s no evidence West Shore RCMP has a disproportionate number of child pornography cases, Saggar said. Twelve of the 17 investigations are focused on the Langford area.

In many of the cases, the illegal images being viewed have been floating around the internet for years and the victims have already been identified, Saggar said.

Any case involving a local victim would be made a high priority, she said.