Sault senior sentenced to 30 months in jail in child porn case

A 71-year-old man from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., found guilty of having and making available child pornography to others, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Kenneth Newell represented himself in a trial that took four days over several months earlier this year.

Justice Romuald Kwolek found him guilty in June and released the reasons for sentencing Sept. 13.

More than 4,300 files containing online child sexual abuse material were found by detectives connected to Kenneth Newell's IP address in 2020, court documents obtained by CTV News said.

Police underwent a four-month investigation from September 2020 to January 2021 which resulted in the search of Newell's apartment on Jan. 27, 2021.

Officers seized 13 devices found in his living room and five of them had either accessible or inaccessible online child sexual abuse material files.

"Many of these images had hashtags for child pornography … and involved scantily clad girls in sexually provocative poses 6-12 years of age," a court document about the case said.

"The majority of those files had names associated to common child pornography terms such as PTHC (pre-teen hardcore) 11yo, 7 yo."

While many of the files found on Newell's devices had been deleted, many were accessible with links to child pornographic materials.

"The child pornography files on the various devices were accessed on multiple occasions over a number of years," the court document said.

"In this case, the forensic analyst found 192 accessible and 7,294 inaccessible child pornography images and 52 accessible and 275 inaccessible child pornography videos on the devices seized.

During the trial, Newell maintained the child pornography was "not intentionally downloaded."

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Taking his age, mental and physical health issues and his lack of a criminal record into consideration, the judge reduced the sentence from three years to two and a half for making child pornography available.

A second 24-month sentence will be served concurrently for the possession of child pornography charge.

Due to Newell's limited income, he will not have to pay a victim surcharge.

He is ordered to forfeit all devices where the child sexual abuse material was found, submit a DNA sample and will be listed on the national sex offender registry. 

RESOURCES FOR FAMILIES

There are many organizations in Canada working to fight online child sexual exploitation. Find resources here.

These are some signs that a child is maybe being targeted: 

• Talks about a new friend you haven't heard of before
• Are very focused on spending more time online
• Have new things you didn't get them (e.g. gifts, devices, video games, new apps or video game upgrades)
• Are more secretive than usual when you are around
• Uses sexual language they haven't before
• Are more fragile, moody or troubled than usual (even for a teenager)
• Isolates themselves in certain locations in the home more than they would normally (e.g. the bedroom or the bathroom)
• Complains of stomach aches, headaches and trouble sleeping