A man has been sentenced in connection with child exploitation after a five-year investigation that involved the Victoria Police Department.
A 39-year-old Coquitlam man named Christopher Thomas Smith was convicted on Aug. 21 and sentenced to 13 months behind bars.
Joined by the BC RCMP Integrated Child Exploitation unit (BC ICE), VicPD started an investigation that began in June 2018, which led to Smith’s arrest on Oct. 30, 2019.
Smith was convicted and sentenced to 13 months for the offences of making or publishing child pornography, distributing child pornography and possession of child pornography, according to an RCMP news release.
Along with the 13 months, he was sentenced to 3 years of probation and must abide by multiple conditions including those governing his access to children under the age of 16.
“This conviction is a result of a lengthy inter-agency investigation, in which specialized ICE investigators identified a possible online predator communicating with someone whom they believed has a five-year-old daughter and made arrangements to meet them and their child for a sexual purpose,” said Cpl. Adelle Brown of BC ICE. “This work is very difficult and challenging for our investigators, but we are a small passionate group committed to bringing offenders who target children for sexual purposes to justice. Each child rescued motivates us to keep moving forward with our work.”
ALSO READ:Lifetime teaching ban issued to former Abbotsford vice-principal sentenced for child porn