Former TRU administrator will spend 90 days in prison for possessing child pornography | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
Subscribe

Would you like to subscribe to our newsletter?

Kamloops News

Former TRU administrator will spend 90 days in prison for possessing child pornography

Image Credit: Shutterstock

"JUST SEND ME TO JAIL. JUST GET IT OVER WITH."

KAMLOOPS - The former director of graduate studies at Thompson Rivers University will be spending 90 days behind bars for possessing child pornography.

Andrew McKay, 55, pleaded guilty to the charge in August last year. He appeared for his sentencing hearing in Kamloops Provincial Court today, July 25.

Court heard that McKay pleaded guilty to spare any more heartache than his family was already facing.

Crown prosecutor Evan Goulet and defence lawyer Shawn Buckley entered a joint submission of 90 days, the mandatory minimum sentence for a child pornography offence.

Buckley asked Judge Mayland McKimm to impose an intermittent prison sentence so McKay could keep his job, serving his time only on weekends.

McKay was found with child pornography May 12, 2014.

Buckley showed McKimm the photographs that McKay had on his work computer.

"The photographs you will see will be the tamest child pornography you've seen," Buckley said.

He described each of the three photographs that McKay possessed. In one, a girl was wearing glasses and exposing her breasts, a "topless selfie" as Buckley put it.

Another picture was a nude photograph with the female subject's breasts exposed, but Buckley said without her face, he couldn't tell her age.

The last photograph entered as evidence showed a female lying down with her breasts and genitalia covered.

Buckley said he had gone to bookstores and public libraries to see where the line for child nudity was crossed, and stated that he found much more graphic examples in public places.

Buckley says McKay has always been attracted to young girls aged 13 and up.

"That attraction is not an offence," Buckley said. "It's just if you ever do anything with it. He actually looked at the child pornography line and he believed he was not crossing it."

A psychiatric report read in court showed that the author believed McKay was "zero risk" to the public.

Court heard that McKay has undergone extensive counselling since May 2014 when he was found in possession of the pictures. 

Buckley said McKay's and his family's lives have been turned upside down since he was fired from TRU. He was caught when he printed one of the pictures out and it was intercepted by a colleague at the printer. He claimed it when the colleague confronted him about it.

Buckley says in the 26 months since this ordeal began, McKay has done nothing wrong.

McKimm is expected to formally enter McKay's sentence later this week, and he will determine whether court-ordered counselling and registering McKay as a sex offender is required.

McKay told the court he wanted to start serving his time this weekend so that his sentence could be finished in time for Christmas.

"Just send me to jail," McKay said to McKimm. "Just get it over with."


To contact a reporter for this story, email Ashley Legassic or call 250-319-7494 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. 

News from © iNFOnews, 2016
iNFOnews

  • Popular vernon News
View Site in: Desktop | Mobile