Interesting Story on Child Porn

The story below demonstrates vividly the causal relationship between consumption of child pornography and sexual assault of children, bolstering the Supreme Court of Canada's assessment that the mere existence of child pornography constitutes a threat to children. Take note of a bolded highlight below and recall the number of major child porn busts not only in Nova Scotia, but across Canada and around the world. The causal linkage also applies to adult pornography, a fact conveniently overlooked by pro-pornography advocates.

Cop: Child porn users take next step
By DAVENE JEFFREY Staff Reporter Wed. Jan 30 - 5:27 AM
Anyone who enjoys child pornography is likely to become a contact sex offender, says RCMP Cpl. Dave Fox.
Although current studies show anywhere from 30 to 70 per cent of people who enjoy child pornography will likely go on to commit the sexual acts themselves, Cpl. Fox says experience has taught him the picture is a lot worse.
Cpl. Fox heads up the RCMP’s provincial Internet child exploitation unit, which was created as a temporary project in 2003.
He participated Monday in a day-long symposium at Dartmouth’s Holiday Inn that brought together government, non-government and industry representatives to look at ways to integrate their fight against online child abuse.
The officer said he formed his views the hard way.
"I know this because I’ve seen it."

. . .

Since 2005, the volume of pornographic images and films available over the Internet has increased 400 per cent, the symposium was told.
"We’re seeing a trend toward younger children" being victimized in the images, said Sgt. Rick Greenwood of the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, adding that the abuses are also becoming more violent, he said.

--

Cause and effect.

Excessive Force?

There have been a number of incidents involving Tasers that strike the chord of being completely unnecessary. The story below is one of them. News stories have shown a few others, including one of an intoxicated woman being zapped three or four times, including once when she was already in the back of the police cruiser and a separate event in which a woman was Tasered in the back after walking away from the officer and then once again when she was on the ground. I remember these two incidents quite vividly, not only because of the excessive nature of the Taser's usage but also because women were involved. The other examples of "excessive force" by the police involving men seemingly were more necessary, as they featured aggressive men who would not submit to police requests otherwise; there were, of course, a couple of incidents that were not required and were unnecessary. The most famous example was the incident in which a man died in Vancouver last year after being Tasered at the airport. Perhaps it is time to lay out some guidelines as to when use of the device is necessary in order to limit future black marks against the law enforcement institution.

Police rapped for using Taser on girl in bedroom
Teen acquitted of assaulting cops
By STEVE BRUCE Court Reporter Wed. Jan 30 - 5:05 AM
A Dartmouth teen who was wrestled onto her bed and shocked twice by police last February was found not guilty Tuesday of assaulting officers and resisting arrest.
"The spectacle of a 17-year-old girl being Tasered in her bedroom is a very disturbing and disconcerting one," Judge Anne Derrick said in Halifax youth court. "I find the police acted outside the scope of their authority in arresting (the girl) and that she was entitled to resist and committed no offence in doing so, and I acquit her of the charges before the court."
The girl testified during the first day of the trial in November that being Tasered felt like having a "burning, open cut."

Child Molester to Face Dangerous Offender Assessment

Hopefully he will indeed be deemed a dangerous offender so that he can never again come into contact with children.

Pedophile to get risk assessment
By STEVE BRUCE Staff Reporter Tue. Jan 29 - 5:50 AM
A Dartmouth man with seven convictions for molesting children has been ordered to undergo a dangerous-offender assessment.
Roger Edouard Mercier, 39, pleaded guilty last week to sexually assaulting a young boy between Sept. 1, 2006, and Jan. 23, 2007, and failing to comply with a police undertaking to stay away from anyone under 16.
In Halifax provincial court on Monday, Judge Castor Williams granted a Crown application to have Mr. Mercier remanded to the East Coast Forensic Hospital in Dartmouth for 60 days so doctors can assess his level of risk to reoffend.
The result of the assessment will determine whether the Crown applies to have the pedophile declared a dangerous offender and imprisoned indefinitely.

Another Child Pornography Bust

Senior charged with child porn possession
Halifax police searched a Parkland Drive apartment in Clayton Park early Wednesday and charged a 67-year-old man for possession and distribution of child pornography.
Thomas Michael Kelly has been released from custody on conditions that restrict his computer use and contact with children. He’ll appear in court at a later date.
Halifax Regional Police and RCMP officers served the search warrant and made the arrest.

Man Convicted of Sexually Assaulting Child

Repeat offenders such as this: ought they to receive the label "dangerous offender"?

39-year-old man guilty of molesting boy
By STEVE BRUCE Court Reporter Thu. Jan 24 - 5:43 AM
A convicted pedophile has admitted molesting a young boy over a five-month period.
Roger Edouard Mercier, 39, of Dartmouth pleaded guilty Tuesday in Halifax provincial court to charges of sexual assault and failing to comply with a police undertaking to stay away from anyone under the age of 16. The offences took place between Sept. 1, 2006, and Jan. 23, 2007.
Mr. Mercier, who is in custody at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth, returns to court Monday. At that time, the Crown is expected to request that he be transferred to the neighbouring East Coast Forensic Hospital for an assessment of his risk to reoffend.
The results of that assessment will determine whether the Crown applies to have Mr. Mercier declared a dangerous offender and imprisoned indefinitely.
Mr. Mercier, a former school teacher in the Annapolis Valley, was convicted at trial last summer of sexually assaulting a seven-year-old Dartmouth girl in 2005. He was given double credit for the eight months and two days he had spent on remand and sentenced to time already served.

Man Threatens Woman

As usual, the story's headline obscures and makes invisible the subject and the object of the verb in question. Who is mysteriously pulling guns? At whom? The location is less relevant than the humans involved, yet no people get top billing. Odd.

Gun pulled at party
Halifax Regional Police are looking for a man who had a handgun when he threatened a woman at a party Saturday night. The incident happened at about 11:30 p.m. at a home on Emerald Crescent in Spryfield, police said.
The man with the handgun was gone before officers arrived.

The Importance of Being Honest

The news stories about Jennifer Horne, which this blog has attempted to document, have generated a bit of concern amongst people in Halifax. They express their concern over the explicitness of the reporting of what people did to her, saying that their sensibilities are offended at having to read such graphic recounting of a horrific and violent incident, particularly in the pages of the Daily News. I recall seeing at least one letter or submitted comment on the matter, and I'm sure that there are many others who feel the same way.
However, there is something very important about this type of concern that deserves discussion. Of course nobody with a conscience likes to read about a woman being sexually assaulted and murdered in gory detail. But in our desire to protect our feelings, are we obscuring reality by shunting the hard truth off to a corner and trying to impose upon the media to make it more reader-friendly? All of this begs the question: what should offend us more: reading about a sexual assault & gruesome murder, or knowing that a person or people actually committed a sexual assault & gruesome murder?
In my view, the latter is what should serve as our motivation to outrage. It was a serious act of male violence that inspired me to join the White Ribbon Campaign and get something established here in Halifax, something which I learned from reading in the paper. I was deeply affected by the horrific assault at the Dartmouth Ultramar, not by the words a scribe used in the next day's Chronicle-Herald to report the assault. We should be outraged when we read a story like that, or like ones about Jennifer Horne, or stories documenting the latest child pornography bust. We should demand that the people--usually men--involved be held accountable, and seek out ways to educate other men that if they commit that type of action, they will meet with full retribution under the law. We should be motivated to have a year-round campaign that seeks to reduce violence against women, children, and other men. It should not come from the top down, it should emerge from a groundswell of anger and resentment that this has gone on for far too long. We should not have to read daily stories of men raping women, of men cutting women's throats, of men killing women, of men exploiting children in child pornography. Yes, yes, I know, men kill other men and women commit violent crimes too. But let's not focus on the minority of violent crime perpetrators, let's be honest with ourselves and with each other: the majority of serious violence in Canada is committed by men. It is important to always remember that all people commit violence, but we are deluding ourselves and shuffling accountability when we try to put violence committed by men against women and children and violence committed by women against men on a par, either moral or statistical. When women commit significantly more than 8% of spousal abuse, I'll be more inclined to discuss women abusing their husbands; as it stands, 92% of reported incidents of spousal violence are committed by men. Let's be honest, and face the grim realities that exist before us, because until we do that violence is going to continue at the present alarming rate.

Threats in Cape Breton

This is seriously disturbing. Hopefully the men involved in this act are caught in very short order so that they cannot inflict any more fear and terror in the lives of children.

Girl, 10, says men in van threatened to kill her
By LAURA FRASER Cape Breton Bureau Sun. Jan 20 - 5:16 AM
SYDNEY MINES — Cape Breton Regional Police are searching for two men who allegedly threatened to kill a 10-year-old girl as she walked home from school Friday afternoon.
The two men drove beside the little girl along Mackay Street and flashed what appeared to be a gun, a police spokesman said Saturday.
The passenger then started screaming at the girl and threatened to shoot her. "The person yelling at her . . . (said) ‘Run home or you’re going to die,’ " a release from the police said.

Released Sex Offender Back in Jail

It's amazing to see that within days of being inadvertently released, he's allegedly involved in another assault. Because of that "administrative error," another person has had to endure the actions of this man.

Alleged sex offender back in jail
24-year-old wrongly released from C.B. prison late last week turns himself in to Eskasoni cops
By TERA CAMUS Cape Breton Bureau Fri. Jan 18 - 5:31 AM
SYDNEY — An accused sex offender who was accidentally freed from jail last week is back behind bars after turning himself in to Eskasoni RCMP on Wednesday night.
Douglas Edward Young, 24, was sent back to the Cape Breton Correctional Centre on Thursday after a brief hearing before Judge Peter Ross at which he asked to be set free again on conditions.
"You had a bail hearing on Sept. 21 and bail was denied," Judge Ross told the Eskasoni man. "I can’t change that and I have no inclination to change that. . . . That’s where you were ordered to go, and that’s where you will stay."
Mr. Young is also a suspect in an assault that occurred in Eskasoni on Tuesday night.

Updates

Two updates on stories involving violent assaults on women today.

When I first heard this story last summer, I was profoundly shaken. Though I regularly encounter gruesome stories of men's violence against women, this one left me in a daze for most of the day. It also motivated me to get involved with the White Ribbon Campaign, a group that I had known of for several years but had never joined. Today, the Chronicle-Herald provided the first update on the situation, as Michael Robichaud pleaded guilty in court.

Scarred for life
Michael Robicheau was worried he would attack again. Ten days after the parole board released him from prison, he did this. On Thursday, he pleaded guilty.
By STEVE BRUCE Court Reporter Fri. Jan 18 - 5:14 AM

Michael Robicheau pleaded guilty Thursday to raping a Dartmouth gas station attendant. He had been released from prison to a halfway house just 10 days earlier.
A 45-year-old woman who was raped and nearly killed while working the overnight shift at a Dartmouth gas station has harsh words for the parole board that released her attacker.
A DARTMOUTH gas station clerk who was raped and whose throat was slit during an overnight shift last summer defiantly lowered her turtleneck and showed her scar to reporters Thursday.
"This is what he’s done to me," the 45-year-old woman said of Michael Derrick Robicheau, who moments earlier had pleaded guilty to five charges in Dartmouth provincial court.
Mr. Robicheau, who had been released from federal prison on statutory parole just 10 days before the Aug. 21 attack, pleaded guilty to attempted murder, sexual assault, robbery, unlawful confinement and possessing a weapon.
The Crown wants Mr. Robicheau, 32, declared a dangerous offender and sent to prison for an indefinite term, until he is no longer considered a risk to society.
Mr. Robicheau agreed to be remanded to the East Coast Forensic Hospital in Dartmouth for a dangerous-offender assessment. He returns to court March 6.
The victim, whose name is banned from publication, said she hoped to have the satisfaction of making eye contact with Mr. Robicheau in court Thursday, "but he wouldn’t look at me."
"My life has changed a great deal since this has happened because he’s harmed me internally as well as externally," she said.
"I want to get back to the person that I was."

Psych assessment for teenager who allegedly attacked ex-girlfriend
By STEVE BRUCE Court Reporter Fri. Jan 18 - 5:36 AM
A Dartmouth teen charged after his pregnant ex-girlfriend and her mother were attacked in their home last month is undergoing a psychiatric assessment.
The assessment at the East Coast Forensic Hospital in Dartmouth was ordered last week for Jonathan Peter Rees, 18, of Windward Avenue, who is accused of attempting to murder Ashley Laing, 18.
He is also charged with two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of assaulting police and single counts of break and enter, violating a recognizance and breaching probation.
The assessment is to be completed by Jan. 24, when Mr. Rees returns to Dartmouth provincial court.
Ms. Laing, who is carrying Mr. Rees’s child, and Heather Moffatt, 46, were attacked Dec. 21. A man broke into their home on Topsail Boulevard in Dartmouth and beat the women with a blunt object before trying to take his own life by stabbing himself in the neck with a knife.
Both women suffered broken bones and cuts in the attack. An ultrasound showed the baby, due May 28, was unharmed.