BC man gets 27 months in prison for child pornography

A BC Supreme Court judge has sentenced a man who pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography to 27 months in prison.

“What is at issue here are images of exploited children being sexually abused,” Judge Murray Blok said in sentencing Kelly Glen Isbister, 52.

Blok said in his recently released decision dated September 13 that images and video files containing child pornography had been detected by one of the popular social media platforms.

Those images were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a U.S. nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the Internet distribution of images and videos of child sexual exploitation.

Blok said the center forwarded the reports to the BC Integrated Child Exploitation Unit.

Search warrant

Investigation revealed that the images and video files were linked to accounts in Isbister’s name.

On December 19, 2019, police executed a warrant at Isbister’s address and seized his cell phone, which was examined, according to the warrant.

Isbister was arrested at the scene but released without conditions once execution of the warrant was completed.

The Aldergrove man was arrested on charges on August 27, 2020, and a second mobile phone seized at the time was found to contain further images of child sexual abuse.

According to Blok, the police found a total of 150 images and ten videos with child pornography on Isbister’s mobile phones.

‘Abuse of the child’

The judge said such a suspect may not have played a direct role in a child sexual abuse crime, but added that such behavior increases the risk of harm to children.

“Someone, somewhere, sexually abused an exploited child to create these images, and the possession and distribution of this material amounts to complicity and approval of the abuse inflicted on the child,” said Blok, chairman of the commission. case in New Westminster.

In 2014, Isbister pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual interference with persons under the age of 16. He received an effective prison sentence of four years with one year deduction for pre-trial detention.

He was also given a lifetime order banning him from communicating with people under the age of 16, visiting public facilities or areas where people under the age of 16 are present, or seeking or having employment of any kind that involves him in a position of trust or has authority over people under the age of 16. .

Isbister was given 369 days credit for time spent in custody awaiting sentence.