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A 24-year-old Lower Mainland man who uploaded child porn to online chat rooms and was caught with more than 8,000 images of child pornography on his cell phone has been handed a sentence of nine months in jail.
Marcus O’Bryan Gilbert was sentenced in North Vancouver provincial court Oct. 19 after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography between August 2019 and February 2020.
Gilbert – who was 20 years old and living in North Vancouver at the time of the offence – came to the attention of police on two occasions, when he uploaded child pornography into a chat room on two different social media apps.
Police then obtained a search warrant, which resulted in the discovery of more than 8,000 images and two videos containing child pornography on his phone, some of those in a folder titled “hidden.”
Images would have had to be manually moved into that folder, rather than automatically downloaded to it, Judge Robert Hamilton noted in handing out his sentence.
A police officer who viewed the images reported most were “on the less offensive end of the scale” featuring children posing erotically without any sexual activity.
But there were also more than 1,000 images that involved sex between a child and adult, Hamilton said.
Hamilton noted the link between the production of child pornography and harm to children is very strong, with trauma to the child remaining “as long as he or she lives” and frequently resulting in a downward spiral in that person’s life.
Hamilton noted Gilbert had a troubled upbringing, including living in multiple foster homes. Later he was adopted into a home on Vancouver Island where he was one of 12 children and a relative sexually abused him, the judge said.
Gilbert’s later life included stints of living in group homes and being homeless, the judge noted.
A psychiatric report concluded Gilbert is at a low risk for future sexual violence.
Gilbert’s lawyer asked the judge to consider a conditional sentence, to be served in the community.
But the judge rejected that.
Gilbert was employed and in a healthy relationship at the time he committed the offence, and was not suffering from mental illness, the judge said.
“The accused has committed a very serious offence and I find that he had a high degree of moral culpability when committing it,” said Hamilton.
In addition to the nine-month jail sentence, Gilbert was sentenced to two years of probation, with conditions to stay away from public parks, playgrounds and community centres where people under 16 are expected to be present, and not to be alone in the presence of anyone under 16 without another adult present.
Gilbert must not be employed or volunteer in any capacity that involves being in a position of trust towards teens under 16 and is banned from maintaining a social media profile, except for work purposes, under the terms of his probation. An additional court order extends a number of those terms for five years.
Gilbert will also be placed on the sexual offender registry for 20 years.
