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.

The accused was tried on charges of child luring and making sexually explicit material available to a child arising from online communications with an undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old girl.

Applying the W.(D.) framework, the court rejected the accused's evidence that he believed he was communicating with a middle-aged man and found that the statutory presumption as to age belief was not displaced.

The court held that the sexually explicit communications, repeated efforts to maintain contact, and attendance at a prearranged meeting established a subjective intent to facilitate a sexual offence.

The court also held that sexually explicit electronic messages constitute written material within s. 171.1.

Convictions were entered on both counts.

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.

The applicant mother and respondent father brought cross-motions regarding interim child and spousal support.

The mother sought to maintain the status quo, arguing there was insufficient evidence to impute income to the self-employed father, whose tax returns showed negative income despite significant spending.

The father sought to impute his income at $50,000 and requested the mother pay child support for their adult daughter attending college.

The court agreed there was insufficient evidence to impute the father's income and maintained the status quo for his support obligations.

However, the court ordered the mother to pay $350 per month in child support for the college-aged daughter, calculating an estimated range based on the parties' likely incomes.