The accused was charged with human trafficking, child pornography, assault, and related offences involving two victims in the sex trade.
The Crown alleged that the accused recruited and exploited the victims, exercised control over their movements and finances, posted advertisements for their sexual services, and created and distributed child pornography involving a minor.
The accused was found guilty on 14 of 15 counts.
The court found that the accused knowingly recruited both victims for exploitation, exercised control through coercion and implied threats, withheld identification documents, assaulted one victim, received financial benefits from their sexual services, and created and distributed child pornography.
The court rejected the defence argument that the accused had an honest but mistaken belief regarding the minor's age, finding instead that he was wilfully blind to her age and failed to take reasonable steps to ascertain it.
