A Meadow Lake RCMP officer says child exploitation cases in the area are unfortunate, but not as rare as people might think.
Two different cases have come to light in the past week. Last week, a joint investigation between the RCMP’s ICE unit and Colorado police saw a 23-year-old man charged with sexual offences related to two children under the age of fourteen. One child was from Canada, the other from the United States.
On Monday, Meadow Lake RCMP stated they’ve arrested and charged a 37-year-old man from Meadow Lake area for 13 different charges involving two 14-year-olds and one 17-year-old.
Both cases involve charges of child luring over the Internet, making sexually explicit material available to a child, and sexual interference. Both also involved investigation from the RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit.
But in the most recent case, Meadow Lake detachment Corporal Ryan How said one of the three youths who were victimized, was also disabled.
“Basically it’s taking advantage sexually of somebody who doesn’t have the mental or physical capacity to consent or otherwise – give informed consent I guess is the way to put it,” he said.
The 37-year-old man is also alleged to have sexually assaulted and invited a victim to sexual touching, on two occasions.
The disturbing elements of sexual exploitation of a disabled person and of luring a child from the United States make these cases exceptional, but cases of child exploitation are common, How said.
“Not to take away from the significance of these two files they are very big ones and these ones aren’t as common, but these investigations, we have them going on non-stop, just not to this scale,” he said.
How says in the past, Meadow Lake detachment hasn’t publicly reported each child exploitation arrest they make, but an update in their communications policy is about to change that.
“Over the last year we’ve had these files, we’ve been doing these investigations, it just hasn’t been as public. So unfortunately I think the public’s going to see more and more in our area that these investigations happen and they’re far more common than people hope they are,” he said.
How commended the efforts of the file’s lead investigator. She became aware of the allegations against the man charged less than a week ago. Within four work days, she’d built a court case for the three victims, How said.
The RCMP is withholding the identity of the accused to protect the victims.
The man was in Meadow Lake court Monday afternoon.