By paNOW

La Ronge man gets 9 months for possessing child porn

Aug 11, 2017 | 3:00 PM

CONTENT WARNING

A 27-year-old man from La Ronge was sentenced to nine months in jail and two years of probation this morning after he was found guilty of possessing child pornography.

Floyd Scott McKenzie was found guilty June 23 after a trial. In his written judgement, Justice Brian Scherman said two hard drives seized from McKenzie’s custom-built gaming computer were found to contain 90 videos and 18 images of which “the vast majority” were clearly child pornography. Although the files were deleted from the computer’s drives, members of the RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation unit were able to recover them. Two computer disks found on McKenzie’s desk also contained pornography featuring minors.

“Many [of the videos] involve major sexual assaults on children,” Scherman said. “Some with associated violence that goes beyond the violence necessarily inherent in sexual assaults.”

At his trial McKenzie argued he allowed several friends to access and use his computer without supervision. The disks were not his, he testified, and he had no knowledge of the contents. McKenzie denied ever accessing, downloading or viewing child pornography.

Lighting it up

P.A.'s Zablocki leads Regina to victory on Day 4 at Esso Cup

11h ago

Rustlers Volleyball

Crusaders' Bell excited for next chapter with Lakeland College

11h ago

Nothing but Net

Vikings' standouts ready for national stage with Team Saskatchewan

14h ago

Scherman noted McKenzie was forced to move in with relatives in Radisson, Sask. briefly during a fire evacuation in July of 2015, and took his computer with him. During that time child porn was accessed on the same computer from a Radisson IP address, Scherman said, which led him to conclude McKenzie was not being truthful.

“The only conclusion to draw is that Floyd McKenzie was on almost a daily basis involved in peer‑to‑peer file sharing of child pornography,” Scherman said. “He was obsessively seeking out child pornography on a daily basis.”

This morning Scherman sentenced McKenzie to spend the next nine months in a provincial correctional centre, based on a sentencing agreement between the Crown and defence. Although possession of child pornography now carries a one-year minimum sentence across the country, McKenzie was exempt from the minimum penalty because his crime occurred in 2015 before the law was changed.

McKenzie’s incarceration will be followed by two years of probation with conditions barring him from possessing or using any device which can access the Internet or store digital data, possessing any pornography, using the Internet or attending any daycare, schoolyard or playground. He will also be required to comply with the Sex Offender Information Registry Act for 10 years, and will have to submit to warrantless searches of his person, home, vehicle and computer.

Scherman said it was a shame to see a young man who showed a promising talent for building custom computers now banned from using them entirely. The judge encouraged McKenzie to use his time on probation to further his education.

Taylor.macpherson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @TMacPhersonNews