Man charged after he's busted abusing child online
Canadian Press
Published: Thursday, November 02, 2006

TORONTO - A man accused of sexually assaulting his own daughter live over the Internet while an undercover police officer watched was remanded in custody Thursday in St. Thomas, Ont.

Toronto Det.-Const. Paul Krawczyk called the footage nauseating and said the case is unprecedented because it's the first time police have made an arrest based on a live Internet broadcast of child abuse.

An undercover officer had been chatting online with the 34-year-old suspect since January but the case took an unexpected twist on Sunday when the accused allegedly transmitted a private live feed to police.

Krawczyk viewed the footage and said he was shocked by what he saw, despite his years of experience in Toronto's child exploitation section.

"I've been in this unit for over four years and you think you've seen everything," said Krawczyk.

"At that moment what I recall is my heart racing out of control, sweating, and feeling like I was going to throw up."

Toronto police immediately placed a call to the Ontario Provincial Police, who in turn got involved with St. Thomas police and sprang into action.

Within two hours, police were at the accused's door, arrested him and rescued the victim.

Krawczyk said it was gratifying to finally have a case where police could act quickly and save the victim.

"We see these images and unfortunately we see a lot of them, many times a day even," he said at a police news conference.

"But to see this child and look in that child's eyes and realize that that child was live somewhere and we had the possibility to save her right then, it's difficult to describe (how it feels)."

Krawczyk said he's convinced police will face similar cases again because technology is getting increasingly cheaper and more powerful, making it easier for pedophiles to spread child pornography.

"Even 10 years ago there weren't that many digital cameras around and if you wanted to do something like this, you had to go and either develop (the film) yourself or know a friend who would develop it and not say anything," he said.

"Now you can take these images, download them to your computer and have them halfway around the world within minutes."

But he said police are constantly researching pedophiles' methods and warned them they will be caught.

"We are on the Internet 24/7, we know where you go, we know where you are, and we're there too," he said.

"We will find you and we will arrest you and we will rescue the children that you are exploiting."

Krawczyk said it's disturbing that pedophiles are finding it increasingly easy to connect with each other and spur one another on.

"They're getting more daring because the Internet allows them to talk about their conquests and allows them to discuss (child pornography) with like-minded people and that is a scary thought," he said.

"(They) set up places where you can meet and talk about it and normalize it and the cognitive distortions that go on, they start discussing that this is OK."

The accused faces multiple sex and child pornography charges but police refused to provide any identifying details about the man or the child.

The young victim is now in the care of other family members. A published report said the victim was the accused's daughter and that she was pre-school aged.

The accused is charged with making child pornography, making it available, possession for the purpose of distribution, sexual assault and sexual interference.

Officers also seized two computers and approximately 100 CD-ROMs and floppy diskettes.

The accused returns to court Nov. 7.

© Canadian Press 2006