The appellant appealed a custodial sentence imposed following a guilty plea to child luring arising from sexually explicit internet communications with an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.
The court held that while denunciation and deterrence will ordinarily require institutional incarceration for child luring, this was one of the rare cases where a conditional sentence was fit because the sentencing judge overemphasized punitive objectives and failed to give proper weight to uncontradicted expert evidence of negligible risk of reoffending, rehabilitation, and the devastating impact of the proceedings on the offender and his family.
Fresh evidence established the appellant's fragile mental and physical condition, prior assaults in custody, and the detrimental impact incarceration would have on his children.
Leave to appeal was granted, the sentence was varied to an 18-month conditional sentence with house arrest followed by probation, and the s. 161 order was reduced to ten years with modified terms.
