Sault man admits to child pornography offences, seeks minimum sentence

The Crown argued Monday that a 66-year-old Sault Ste. Marie man, who counseled people online to commit sexual acts on children, should be imprisoned for 18 months.

James O'Hara has pleaded guilty to two child pornography charges, and after hearing sentencing submissions from the prosecution and defence, Ontario Court Justice John Condon reserved his decision until April 26.

O'Hara was charged in April 2016, and on Feb. 6 pleaded guilty to making child pornography available.

On Monday, he entered a guilty plea to a second count of creating child pornography and sending it over Skype.

The offences each carry a mandatory minimum sentence of one-year custody.

Defence counsel Michael Bennett asked the judge to impose the minimum of 12 months concurrent for both offences.

Assistant Crown attorney David Didiodato, who also is seeking the maximum three-year period of probation, cited a number of aggravating factors that he said warrant going beyond the mandatory minimum jail term.

He described the volume of child pornography images discovered by the police as being in the mid-range, "not a few dozen, but multiple hundreds."

Fifty-one videos were also located.

The most aggravating factor is the distribution and production part of the offence, the prosecutor told Condon.

Children, the most vulnerable in society, are victimized by child pornography, Didiodato said.

"Counselling others to victimize children in chats warrants going beyond the mandatory minimum of 12 months."

Bennett indicated he was asking for the minimum sentence because of his client's early guilty pleas and cooperation.

The charges had a significant effect on O'Hara, who received extensive injuries in a suicide attempt and spent a month in an Ottawa hospital, after being airlifted there and undergoing surgery, he said.

Future surgery will be required to remove a tube that was installed in Ottawa, and O'Hara has concerns about being in custody with that medical problem and having any treatment taking place there, Bennett said.

Bennett suggested that O'Hara could be a vulnerable person in jail because of the offences he will be doing time for and his medical problems.

The general public would say that the suicide attempt represents a significant deterrent effect, that there are consequences of these investigations, he said.

"I think fair members of the public would say he started to serve his sentence when he was charged because of public disapproval of his actions."

Didiodato countered that the suicide try wasn't an attempt to show remorse, but rather an attempt to escape being held responsible for what he had done.

This is echoed in a pre-sentence report, which indicated O'Hara has made no efforts to seek counseling or rehabilitation, he said.

"He has not taken any steps to correct his offending behaviour that would satisfy the court that he's not likely to re-offend."

Bennett responded that his client didn't want to engage in counselling because he couldn't speak for a good deal of time after his suicide attempt, and there also was a continuing investigation that resulted in a further charge.

Didiodato also asked the judge to impose a lengthy list of probation conditions and other prohibitions.

O'Hara should be required to register as a sex offender for 20 years and provide a DNA sample for the national database, he said.