James Adam Carson has been sentenced to a year in jail after pleading guilty to 10 counts related to break and entering, theft, and accessing and possession of child pornography.

Carson was arrested last year after his DNA from a coffee cup matched stains on the women's underwear. A subsequent search of his home computer also found more than 32,000 pictures and videos of pornography, including 24 videos involving children.

The Crown had argued Carson's offences were reprehensible and involved a "very serious breach of trust and a flagrant abuse of authority on numerous occasions over an extended period of time."

The court heard how Carson took the members' keys from their personal property at the RCMP detachment and made copies at three different key-cutting shops in Revelstoke.

He then entered the different officers' homes, where he stole bras and panties or masturbated in them, leaving them soiled and balled up for the officers to find later.

The Crown noted Carson often took the underwear with him, with intent to transfer it from one member's home to another. It was stored in a Rubbermaid container in his bedroom closet until he made the switch.

The women often found unfamiliar underwear in their drawers and eventually realized their missing underwear was turning up at other officers' homes.

Carson justified the offences by saying he had an "ever-increasing need for excitement," according to the Crown's sentencing notes.

According to Dr. Liam Ennis, a clinical forensic psychologist requested by the defence counsel, Carson experiences chronic feelings of anxiety and tends to direct those negative feelings toward women.

His actions were acts of "premeditated opportunism that were planned and rehearsed repeatedly in his imagination" before he did them, Ennis said, according to the Crown's sentencing notes.

Ennis said Carson's sexual arousal is closely linked with feeling powerful "by creating real or imagined circumstances in which he can feel sexually potent without fear of rejection or criticism."

Stealing and ejaculating in women's underwear allows him a "sense of non-consenting sexual access." His preference for conventional, non-coercive sex means he surrounds himself with non-threatening sexual partners such as young girls and fetish objects.

Ennis said Carson was at moderate risk for breaking-and-entering and accessing child pornography in the future.

But until he resolves his feelings of inadequacy and associated anger towards women, Ennis said, Carson would be inclined to "engage in maladaptive behaviours."

Carson, in his late 20s, had worked at the RCMP for four years before he was arrested. He later resigned from the force and moved to Leduc, Alta., with his wife and young child.

ksinoski@png.canwest.com © The Vancouver Sun 2007