Warning: This story contains graphic content
Almost immediately after Shane Dale Pattison left prison on statutory release in 2015 he was viewing and distributing child pornography again, and was caught six months later.
The 27-year-old pleaded guilty to 42 child pornography-related charges – 41 counts of distributing child pornography and one count of possessing it – at Saskatoon’s Queen’s Bench Court Friday.
When members of the Saskatchewan Internet Child Exploitation Unit went to a shelter Pattison was living at to ensure he wasn’t breaking conditions of his release in March 2016, they found him sitting on a bed with a blanket covering a computer on his lap. He was actively streaming child pornography.
“We’ve had situations where people are in the midst of viewing or downloading material,” Sgt. Darren Parisien with the Saskatchewan ICE Unit told reporters Friday. “Mr. Pattison was kind of the extreme. He had three devices open and all of them he was streaming child pornography at that time.”
The majority of Pattison’s collection involved children under the age of eight and he shared the images on file sharing sites Kik and Flickr.
The ICE Unit found more than 4,000 different child pornography images and videos involving babies and toddlers, some of who were bound during the abuse, according to an agreed statement of facts.
“Mr. Pattison’s collection is among the worst I’ve ever seen,” Parisien said.
In 2012, Pattison was sentenced to five years in prison – one of the longest sentences in Saskatchewan for child pornography - after pleading guilty to 53 child pornography-related charges. He was on statutory release when he was arrested and charged in March 2016. After his arrest, Pattison told police if he had access to devices he felt that he couldn’t control himself, according to the statement of facts.
Pattison was offending when he was waiting for treatment and during it, but told police he was not offered treatment in prison.
“As a result of his non-hands-on offending, he didn’t qualify for the intensive programming that's available in the federal institutions,” defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle said. “If that's shocking to members of the public, join the club, because I was shocked as well.”
Crown prosecutor Lana Morelli told reporters the Crown is considering arguing Pattison be deemed a dangerous or long-term offender.
“We will put together all the information that we have on Mr. Pattison, on any prior convictions that he may have, any other relevant information that we can gather that will give us an informed idea whether a (dangerous offender application) is appropriate,” Morelli said.
When Pattison was arrested he handed over his passwords to police and told them he wanted the other people he was sharing files with to be caught. More than 1,300 investigations into child pornography have been launched in North America as a result of Pattison’s arrest.
Pfefferle said that he and the Crown are planning to enter a joint-submission of seven years in prison, which would be precedent-setting in Saskatchewan for child pornography sentences. Pattison is scheduled back in Queen’s Bench court to begin the sentencing process July 19.
