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Crown appeal fails to extend 20-month prison term in Yukon man’s child porn sentence

Court of Appeal judges move to triple length of order restricting man’s access to children, internet
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An appeal by Crown lawyers did not succeed in lengthening the prison term of a Yukon man convicted of possessing child pornography. (File Photo)

A 20-month prison sentence for a man convicted of holding a large collection of child pornography has been appealed by Crown lawyers, who argued the sentence was too light.

A three-judge Yukon Court of Appeal panel stopped short of imposing the three-year prison sentence the crown counsel was seeking. However, they did move to triple the length of an order restricting the convicted man’s access to children in certain circumstances and his use of digital networks, finding the initial order demonstrably unfit to protect children and prevent the man from reoffending.

Justices Joyce Justice DeWitt-Van Oosten, Elizabeth Bennett and Susan Charlesworth heard the appeal of the sentence levied against Allan Donald McCrimmon in late November 2021.

DeWitt-Van Oosten filed a written decision on Jan. 12 that the other two judges concurred with.

McCrimmon, who was 64 years old at the time of sentencing, was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment and two years of probation in June 2021 after pleading guilty. At the time of the sentencing, the judge also imposed a five-year order restricting his access to children in certain circumstances and his use of digital networks.

The Crown appealed, seeking an increase of the prison term to at least three years and an extension of the prohibition order to 20 years.

McCrimmon was caught with a collection of 33,605 child pornography images and 4,696 videos after police detected an image that he uploaded from his computer to the internet in 2018. The images were on four computer towers, a tablet and a mobile phone seized from McCrimmon’s home in a March 2019 raid.

The judge at the initial trial found that the images had been viewed and saved to McCrimmon’s computers over approximately a decade. In their appeal, the Crown lawyers state that evidence shows McCrimmon had been viewing child pornography for close to two decades rather than one.

Victim impact statements from individuals who appear in the images were compiled by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and presented to the court.

The Yukon territorial court judge noted the number of images were an aggravating factor showing an “industry-sized destruction of children.” The judge also heard mitigating factors about McCrimmon’s childhood and the steps he had taken to correct his behaviour while on bail prior to trial.

The appeal highlighted potential errors in the sentencing. The Crown lawyers stated that the judge did not adequately consider the size and gravity McCrimmon’s pornography collection or the fact that he uploaded an image to the internet. They also claimed a misapprehension of facts by the judge including the length of time McCrimmon had been viewing child pornography and the ages of the youngest victims depicted in the images.

The Court of Appeal judges found that the territorial court judge could have imposed a longer prison sentence but the Crown did not establish significant errors to show that the 20 month term was unfit.

“However, the five-year prohibition order that forms part of the sentence is demonstrably unfit and increased to 15 years. A prohibition of that length is necessary to adequately minimize the risk of Mr. McCrimmon committing further offences involving child pornography,” the Court of Appeal judgment reads.

Contact Jim Elliot at jim.elliot@yukon-news.com



Jim Elliot

About the Author: Jim Elliot

I’m a B.C. transplant here in Whitehorse at The News telling stories about the Yukon's people, environment, and culture.
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