Paul Watson

The offender was convicted of luring and making sexually explicit material available to a child after communicating with an undercover police officer posing as a 15-year-old girl on Craigslist.

The court sentenced the offender to 18 months' imprisonment and 3 years' probation for the luring offence, finding that the aggravating factors, including the offender's persistence and attendance at a meeting place, warranted a sentence above the mandatory minimum.

The court applied the Kienapple principle to conditionally stay the charge of making sexually explicit material available to a child, finding it was an alternate form of the same criminal harm.

A child protection summary judgment motion brought by Chatham-Kent Children's Services seeking to have a child declared a Crown ward with no access to the respondents.

The father presented a plan for the child's care, but the mother and paternal step-grandfather were in default.

The court found that the child was in need of protection under the Child and Family Services Act and that the father's plan was deficient.

The father had demonstrated a lack of commitment to the child through inconsistent access visits and had a history of parenting failures with other children.

The court granted the Society's motion, making the child a Crown ward with no access to any respondents.

A child protection society brought a motion for summary judgment seeking a finding that a child was in need of protection under section 37(2)(b)(i) of the Child and Family Services Act on grounds of risk of physical harm.

The child had been in the father's sole custody and care for approximately four months before the application was commenced.

The mother had a history of substance abuse, medical issues, and domestic violence incidents.

The court found that while the mother presented a significant risk of harm, the statutory language of section 37(2)(b)(i) requires that the risk be caused by or result from the acts or omissions of "the person having charge of the child." The court determined that the father, as the sole custodian, was the person having charge, and that the mother's supervised access did not constitute having charge.

The court found some evidence of the father's failure to protect the child from domestic violence exposure and confusion regarding access restrictions, sufficient to support a finding under section 37(2)(b)(i).

The court granted a section 57.1 sole custody order to the father with supervised maternal access.