Thursday, May 30, 2013

Custodial dad on trial for making, distributing child porn involving infant daughter (Edmonton, Canada)

UNNAMED DAD.

It is very uncommon for mothers to simply leave and abandon two-month-old babies. Nevertheless, the reporter fails to ask or pursue any follow-up questions.

Did Daddy deliberately choose a mentally ill and/or addicted woman to impregnate so he could literally "grow your own victim"?

Or was the mother driven from the home by violence or threats of violence?

Do we even know if she is still alive or what happened to her? Of course not.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Baby+needle+haystack+until+investigators+found+charged+father+crimes/8454930/story.html

Baby was ‘needle in haystack’ until investigators found and charged father for sex crimes

By Ryan Cormier, Edmonton Journal
May 30, 2013 7:47 AM

EDMONTON - They assigned the little girl the random name Baby Alison, and she was, a prosecutor told an Edmonton court, “the needle in a haystack ... a nameless child and could have been from anywhere in the world.”

But she wasn’t from just anywhere in the world. She was from Edmonton.

Pictures of her were found in 2010 in child pornography uncovered during an investigation in Europe. The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, an American organization, identified several Internet images and videos of the same infant girl they believed were produced in Canada. Ottawa investigators then took over, and by May 2012, 109 pictures and 13 videos of the child had been discovered. They also identified an unknown man with a heavy build and round face in some of the images.

The pornography was traced to the Edmonton area and the northern Alberta Integrated Child Exploitation Unit took over the investigation, though Baby Alison’s identity was still a mystery.

Crown prosecutor Cheryl Schlecker told court that investigators identified an Edmonton business pamphlet in the videos, as well as a local Capital Health logo. In some of the pornography, the child wore a white helmet used in medical procedures. That led police to the Stollery Children’s Hospital, where a staff member identified the girl as a former patient from 2007.

In May 2012, police investigated the family and visited the unkempt house where the girl lived with her father, uncle and grandmother. Officers noted her father fit the description of the man in some of the images. Items in the house also matched those that appeared in the background of the videos.

The father and his brother, the girl’s uncle, were both arrested.

The 34-year-old father pleaded guilty to the sexual touching of a person under sixteen and the creation, distribution and ownership of child pornography. The uncle’s case is still before the courts.

Schlecker asked the court Wednesday to impose a sentence of 11 to 12 years.

“This breach of trust that he inflicted on his biological daughter was the most extreme betrayal,” Schlecker said. “It is one of the most extreme breaches and betrayals a father can perpetuate against his daughter.”

On computers and electronics seized in her father’s home, sexual videos and pictures of the girl were found. In some of the photos, the girl was dressed in a pink dress and blond wig, “like a doll,” Schlecker said. In one of the videos, the girl softly calls out, “Dada.”

There were also 174 images of child pornography involving other victims from the Internet.

Schlecker told court the abuse began when the girl was three to six months old.

As his crimes were discussed, the father sat motionless in court in an orange prison jumpsuit.

Defence lawyer Mona Duckett made a submission for a sentence of seven to nine years. Schlecker said the father allowed his brother access to his daughter even after he walked in on an alleged sexual assault when she was only a few months old.

“He did not go to police or take steps to protect his daughter. He allowed his brother to use her as a sexual plaything. He didn’t see any harm in it.”

Later, court heard, the father sexually abused the girl himself.

“Is there any chance that this doesn’t have to be, like, known?” The father asked police during a statement. “Is there anyway that this can be kept quiet?”

The girl’s mother left the family when her daughter was two months old.

The girl is now with her maternal grandmother, court heard.

The father is scheduled to be sentenced on July 2.