On April 8, investigators in the RCMP/Halifax Regional Police integrated child exploitation unit say they learned of a video showing a 15-year-old girl performing a consensual sexual act with a 14-year old male.
“Which is really irrelevant because once it’s been recorded, it becomes child pornography because of the age of the person involved,” Halifax Regional Police Const. Pierre Bourdages said.
Police say the suspect took the video at a party where alcohol was being consumed, then posted it to a social media site. The website deleted the video after police made them aware of the case.
“However, given the nature of the Internet we can never really be sure that the video is not anywhere else,” Bourdages said.
“If someone was in possession of that video or was making it available to anyone … they could face charges,” he added.
Police also confiscated the phone with the original video. The youth turned himself in to police on May 24 and was arrested.
The 14-year-old is charged with possession and making of child pornography, and making child porn available to others. He has been released on conditions to not contact the victim, use the Internet or a device that can access the web.
“It’s very troubling. I’m not sure if the youth these days are realizing the liability and the gravity of these things,” Bourdages said.
The youth will appear in court on June 20.
Echoes of Rehtaeh Parsons’ case
This case of a 14-year-old boy who allegedly posted a sexual video online has some noting the similarities between it and the alleged sexual assault of Rehtaeh Parsons.
Parsons, a 17-year-old Cole Harour teen, took her own life in early April, two years after she was allegedly gang-raped and then bullied by classmates over a shared photo of the incident.
Glen Canning, Parsons’ father, took to Twitter Wednesday after police released details of the case involving the 14-year-old boy: “Still it didn’t take long in this case as opposed to the 1 ½ (years) + for Rehtaeh’s case. Hard to figure this out.”
Bourdages said each case is weighed “on it’s own merit” and the kinds of evidence police have could determine different things.
“We have a duty to make people aware that this is happening and it is unacceptable,” Bourdages said.
