Teens charged as images of alleged sexual assault shared online

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This article was published 18/07/2019 (1743 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two teens have been charged with sexually assaulting a girl in northern Manitoba and sharing a video of the assault on social media.

A 16-year-old boy and an 18-year-old man have both been charged with sexual assault, forcible confinement and possession of child pornography, after they allegedly victimized a teen girl. Manitoba RCMP said she was 16 or 17, but they aren’t releasing her age or location to protect her privacy.

The name of the 18-year-old accused also hasn’t been released. He is also charged with publishing and distributing child pornography.

RCMP said in a news release Friday they believe video of the assault is still making the rounds on social media and being shared via text messages.

Cases like this are “few and far between,” but the sharing of filmed crimes and sexual images is becoming more common, said Const. Gord Olson of the RCMP’s internet child exploitation unit.

There have been three or four similar incidents in Manitoba over the past couple of years, Olson said. (He wasn’t involved in this investigation.)

“I don’t want to say it’s common, but we’ve seen an increase of them, for sure,” he said.

“This specific type of incident is not a common occurrence. Unfortunately, the sharing of child pornography — because that’s what it is — amongst kids, we see that every day. Lots every day, actually.”

Many teens Olson encounters are used to posting on Snapchat and other social media services without thinking, he said, noting the unit is trying to encourage teens — and their parents — to get educated about the lasting harm of sharing such photos and videos online.

“I think teens in general feel like they can just do this. I’m not necessarily talking about the sexual assault side of it, but they can tape or record this imagery and put it out there without any sort of consequences. I feel that that’s sort of what the culture is right now, and it’s not, because, obviously, we take any reports of child pornography seriously,” Olson said.

Stephen Sauer, director of Cybertip.ca, said the national child sexual-exploitation tip line notes “the recording of crimes like this are ever-increasing.” The ease with which the videos are shared online causes even more pain for victims, he said.

“There’s the trauma that people suffer as a result of these types of crimes and then the ongoing sharing of the recording of that type of crime, it exponentially increases that for them, because they don’t know who has seen that material, where it’s been distributed, they don’t know ultimately who is in possession of that material at any given time,” Sauer said.

“It really impacts their life, every single day.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay