P.E.I. man sentenced to 26 months in prison on child porn charges

A 70-year-old man from Kensington, P.E.I., has been sentenced to 26 months in prison after pleading guilty to child pornography charges last October.

Because the sentence is longer than two years, Gordon Jenkins will serve his sentence in a federal penitentiary.

He was due to be sentenced in February pending a psychological evaluation, but delays meant the sentence was delivered months later.

The Crown had sought a sentence of between 28 and 34 months, according to the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island sentencing decision dated Aug. 1. The defence sought a conditional sentence of between 12 and 18 months, followed by a lengthy period of probation.

"The harm caused to the victim was profound," Justice Jonathan Coady wrote in the sentencing decision.

"The offender is solely responsible for these offences. These offences were not the product of a single poor decision or a momentary lapse in judgment. This was sustained criminal behaviour on the part of the offender."

The evidence trail in the Jenkins casestarted in July 2021 when he uploaded six images to Dropbox, an online file storage service.

The company flagged the images as child pornography and forwarded the images as well as Jenkins's user information to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.

More than 8,000 images

RCMP on P.E.I. began an investigation that led toa search of Jenkins's home in July 2022. Officers found more than 8,000 images and a video considered child pornography on several computers and external storage drives.

Among them were photos that included the face of a young person known to Jenkins, taken from Facebook photos and placed on the bodies of unknown children using photo-editing software. Police estimate Jenkins manipulated hundreds of photos in this way.

At the core of these feelings is a loss of trust and agency.Victim impact statement

There is no evidence he took photos or videos of nude children himself.

In her victim impact statement, the person whose photo was manipulated described feelings of being violated, anxious, betrayed, overwhelmed and vulnerable.

"At the core of these feelings is a loss of trust and agency," she wrote.

Addicted to pornography?

According to a pre-sentence report, Jenkins said he became addicted to pornography after beginning testosterone replacement therapy in 1993 to treat Klinefelter syndrome. In 1999, he was diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

The court received six letters of support for the offender, describing him as "kind, compassionate and community-minded."

But Coadysaid in the written decision that a sentence of imprisonment was necessary based on the "moral blameworthiness" of theoffender and the gravity of the offences.

"While there is no doubtthat the offender wrongly faced trauma as a child, was wrongly bullied at school and work, and has faced legitimate challenges related to his health, including his mental health, the court is without sufficient evidence to conclude that the criminal behaviour in this case was caused by any of these unfortunate circumstances," the judge wrote.