No Jail Time For 'Vile' Child Porn
By David Rider
Originally published in The Ottawa Citizen, February 24, 2002
TORONTO — As police battle what they call an epidemic of Internet-distributed child pornography, Ontario's top court has wiped out a jail sentence imposed on a Carleton Place man for downloading hundreds of "vile and disgusting" images.
The Ontario Court of Appeal overturned the eight-month jail term imposed last June by a lower court on Gregory Schan, a Carleton Place tow-truck driver who admitted to downloading child pornography on his home computer.
The appeal court instead imposed an 18-month conditional sentence—a kind of house arrest that will let Mr. Schan go out for work and one hour of recreation per day but requires him to be home by 8 p.m.
"The trial judge quite properly described the images as vile and disgusting," states the ruling, released last week, by the Chief Justice of Ontario Roy McMurtry, Madame Justice Rosalie Abella and Mr. Justice Marvin Catzman.
However, the judge erred by not giving enough weight to the circumstances of this case—that Mr. Schan downloaded the images for his own use, did not distribute them, lost his marriage and relationship with his two children and has attempted suicide, the ruling states.
Mr. Schan's Ottawa lawyer, Bruce Simpson, said the conditional sentence is appropriate given that his client co-operated with police, had started to erase the images on his own and initiated his ongoing psychiatric treatment.
"As a police officer and as a person, I'm obviously in favour of jail terms for this crime but conditional sentences seem to be what the judges are giving out," said Insp. Wayne Drummond of Carleton Place police.
Not every judge. On Friday in Cornwall, Justice Bruce MacPhee rejected a prosecution suggestion that a 49-year-old man convicted of possession of child pornography be sent to jail for between 30 and 45 days.
Judge McPhee said the sentence "would bring the administration of justice in this community into disrepute. I'm not going to do it," and imposed a jail term of four months on William Leach, 49, of Alexandria.
"You exchanged this material with people of like minds," the judge told Mr. Leach, calling it "utterly evil stuff."
"A pox on all of your houses."
