Foster parent gets 25 years for sex abuse

A Brandon man who made and distributed videos of him sexually abusing two of his young foster children received a 25-year prison sentence on Tuesday.

Delivering the sentence in Brandon provincial court, Judge Patrick Sullivan said the offender’s actions gravely violated the safety, dignity and innocence of children in his care — a girl who was about one year old and a boy aged seven.

“The vulnerability of these children cannot be overstated. Their ages would have made it difficult, if not impossible, for them to understand, resist or speak out about what was happening to them,” Sullivan said.

“He took advantage of his position of trust as a foster parent. He abused and violated the most vulnerable victims imaginable in some of the most vile and intrusive ways.”

The 38-year-old man — who lived in a residence with his common-law partner who ran a home daycare — pleaded guilty in January to two counts each of sexual interference, making child sexual abuse material and distributing child sexual abuse material.

He also pleaded guilty to a single count of possessing child sexual abuse material.

The victims’ identities are protected under a publication ban, which prohibits the publishing of any information that could identify them. The Sun has not named the offender as it could identify the child victims.

Crown attorneys Rich Lonstrup and Nikki Boggs had recommended a 25-year sentence, while defence lawyer Jennifer Janssens argued for a sentence in the range of 16 to 18 years.

Sullivan said the sentence imposed needed to denounce the offender’s behaviour and deter him and others from committing sexual offences against children.

“Another important goal is separating (him) from society in order to protect children and promote in him a sense of personal responsibility,” Sullivan said.

“The circumstances of these offences are deeply disturbing and reveal conduct that is abhorrent, shocking and repugnant in nature.”

The man was brought to the attention of police through the Norwegian National Criminal Investigation Service and the National Child Exploitation Centre of Canada. Officials in Norway reported that they had intercepted communication between the offender and a man who was in custody in Norway.

The Brandon Police Service was provided with Telegram conversations between the man and the “unknown Norway user” during a period from August 2024 to January 2025.

In the conversations, the man self-identified as a “pedo” and “repeatedly indicated his enthusiasm for CSAM (child sexual abuse material) and child abuse, and discussing the sharing, viewing and receiving of CSAM from the other person,” an agreed statement of facts said.

The contents included material linked to the two identified victims.

Two nude photos of the girl were found on the man’s phone, along with more than 10 CSAM photos of her that he created and shared on Telegram. Police also retrieved two videos of the girl that were sent to the man in Norway. The videos depict the man touching the naked baby’s genitalia and masturbating.

Police found one video of the boy, during which he was performing oral sex on the man.

As well, more than 100 videos of CSAM were retrieved from the man’s phone.

In addition to the videos of the two identified victims, the statement said 131 CSAM videos and two CSAM images of “adult sexual exploitation of unknown children were shared between (the offender) and an unknown person from Norway.”

Police arrested the man and seized his devices from his Brandon home in February 2025. Six children were in the home at the time of his arrest.

The offender, who has no prior criminal record and was assessed as an average risk to reoffend, moved to Brandon after his previous marriage ended in 2023, partially due to his substance abuse, Sullivan said.

It was after he came to Brandon that he got into a relationship with his common-law partner, court heard.

The man told the probation officer who wrote his pre-sentence report that he was engaging in online forums dedicated to child sexual abuse material to “catch predators,” court heard. He also said he victimized the children to “have something real to offer.”

“This logic, to me, seems clearly delusional,” Sullivan said. “It is ridiculous and impossible to reconcile the competing aims of catching and exposing sexual offenders by engaging in sexual offending himself.”

Sullivan said courts across the country have repeatedly recognized that online child exploitation material “causes profound and enduring harm.”

“In addition to the traumas of initial assault itself, the circulation of the videos and images of the assault online means victims may experience continuing trauma from the knowledge that their abuse is repeatedly viewed, shared and commodified by strangers indefinitely.”

While there were no allegations of offending against other children, Sullivan said it’s also concerning that the abuse took place in the same residence as a home daycare.

“Their proximity to the offender and this offending will likely forever haunt them and their families,” Sullivan said, referring to children who attended the daycare.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com