Repeat sex offender gets decade behind bars

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A 42-year-old man who has a history of preying on girls over the internet will spend the next nine-and-a-half years behind bars after he fell back into the same exploitative behaviour.

Tyson Gerard Harding was sentenced in the Brandon Court of King’s Bench on Monday after he pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and child luring.

The charges stem from a three-year period, from around January 2016 to July 2019, when Harding would pose as a teenage boy online and use this false identity to solicit sexually provocative images from pre-teen and teenage girls.

Harding became so obsessed that he even used the computer terminals at his workplace, a Brandon hotel, to engage with his victims.

His activity eventually attracted the attention of Harding’s co-worker, who contacted Cybertip.ca, Canada’s national tip line for reporting the online exploitation of children, in February 2019 to share what he had seen.

Following an investigation, police executed a search warrant at Harding’s residence on July 23, 2019, and they uncovered 53 sexualized images of girls between ages 10 and 17.

Police further discovered Harding had obtained the images through communicating with these girls on Skype and a Google chat app, although he never met up with any of the victims in person.

Judge Elliot Leven considered Harding’s actions to be particularly aggravating during Monday’s sentencing, especially in the wake of the 2019 Supreme Court of Canada case R v. Friesen, which dictates that sentences involving the sexual abuse of children should be expanded.

Harding has a history of this kind of illicit activity. In 2010, he spent 90 days in jail for possessing seven videos containing child pornography.

And while there was also evidence that Harding had an online relationship with a 15-year-old Brandon girl when he was first arrested in 2007, these chats weren’t considered illegal since the age of consent at the time was 14.

However, Justice John Menzies still warned Harding in 2010 that he was heading down a “very dangerous road” that could lead to more serious offending down the line.

Harding did not heed the judge’s warning, as he was caught violating the conditions of his probation in 2012 by accessing the internet and making sexually inappropriate comments to a 16-year-old girl online.

In light of the charges stemming from his 2019 arrest, Leven sentenced Harding to eight-and-a-half years in prison for child luring and an extra year for possessing child pornography.

Harding must also register with the Sexual Offender Information Registry Act database for life.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @KyleDarbyson