Winnipeg man pleads guilty to child porn, sex assault of his 5 children

WINNIPEG — A Winnipeg man has admitted to sexually abusing and making pornography with his five young children after he was exposed by an Australian police sting.

The 28-year-old father pleaded guilty last month to numerous charges, including making child pornography and multiple counts of sexual assault.

He has been in custody since his arrest 10 months ago and will be sentenced in January.

The children — a nine-year-old girl and boys aged four to eight — have suffered extreme mental trauma from the abuse.

According to an agreed statement of facts, the man, his wife and their children originally lived in Edmonton, where Child and Family Services officials first intervened shortly after the birth of the youngest child in July 2009.

The children were placed in foster care over concerns about the father’s interactions with his daughter; the father then moved to Winnipeg, and his wife regained custody on the condition she not allow the kids to have any contact with their father.

She left Alberta in 2010 because she was struggling to raise the children as a single parent and, once back in Winnipeg, she resumed living with the father of her children.

Child and Family Services conducted a check on the family in 2010, repeating the position of their Alberta colleagues that the father should have no unsupervised access to his children.

That warning was ignored by the father, mother and other family members, court was told.

The three oldest children began staying with their grandparents, but rejoined their parents and siblings on weekends. It was during these weekends, between 2011 until last January, that the crimes were committed on the children, court was told.

All the kids were made to perform and receive sexual acts from their father and to each other. Much of this was photographed and the images were shared on the Internet.

In January, Australian police found a profile created on an image-sharing website frequented by pedophiles. The father was engaging in conversations with users, including an undercover police officer, and sent explicit photos of him sexually abusing his daughter.

Following his arrest, the father admitted wrongdoing and said he wouldn’t fight the charges at trial.

“He stated that he believed he was addicted to sex,” said Crown attorney Jennifer Mann. “He stated these crimes occurred because the children were accessible and that if he could just have a normal sexual relationship with a woman things like this wouldn’t happen. He indicated that he was sorry they had to go through this and they would need therapy.”

The Crown plans to show many of the photos at the sentencing hearing and present an extensive medical report about the impact the abuse has had on the children.