A man from Churchill and a man from Flin Flon have been convicted and sentenced to prison terms for child pornography-related charges that resulted from Manitoba RCMP Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) investigations in 2017.
Twenty-one-year-old Joshua Proulx of Churchill pleaded guilty to child pornography, sexual assault and voyeurism charges Oct. 23 and was sentenced to two years less one day for the sexual assault and six months for the voyeurism, RCMP said in a Nov. 8 press release.
The RCMP National Child Exploitation Co-ordination Centre (NECC) had alerted the Manitoba RCMP in January 2017 that an image of child pornography had been uploaded to the social media app KIK from an IP address in Churchill. That resulted in the execution of a search warrant at a Churchill residence and the seizure of electronic devices. That evidence showed that the suspect had sexually assaulted an adult female while she was unconscious.
Another 21-year-old, Darwyn Waslyciw of Flin Flon, has been sentenced to two years less a day after pleading guilty to breaching his probation and to possessing and accessing child pornography. He was also given a 20-year Sex Offender Information Registration Act order, which means police have access to the information he must provide to register as a sex offender.
The Manitoba RCMP were informed by the NECC in May 2017 about child pornography uploaded to Google + Images from an IP address in Flin Flon, which led to ICE officers attending the residence and arresting Wasylciw for having a device that could connect to the Internet in violation of his probation.
“Manitoba RCMP ICE Unit investigators work tirelessly on extremely difficult and sensitive cases,” said Sgt. Steve Rear, head of the ICE Unit. “We cannot always talk about what we are investigating because our first priority is always the victim, but we are working hard to see these offenders end up in court and are held accountable for their actions.”
RCMP ask anyone who is a victim or knows of instances in which children are bing exploited online to contact their local police or Cybertip.ca.
