Image Credit: PEXELS
October 19, 2019 - 7:00 AM
A Vernon man sentenced to six years in prison for multiple child pornography crimes against children living in the Philippines, has lost an appeal saying police had no right to search his home and seize his computer.
Wayne Douglas Brown was convicted in June 2018 for a variety of child luring and child pornography charges where he contacted teenage girls in the Philippines online and offered to pay them for engaging in sexually explicit acts via a webcam.
Brown, born 1949, appealed his conviction arguing the warrant issued to police to search his home should not have been issued as there was insufficient evidence to believe his residence would contain evidence of his offence.
Brown also argued evidence seized during the search should be excluded and that the trial judge in his case should not have allowed it to be used in court as a quick initial search of his property by police was a breach of his charter rights.
According to court documents, in September 2016 Vernon RCMP received information from the British Columbia Integrated Child Exploitation Unit that Brown was engaging in sexually explicit chats online with teenaged girls from the Philippines.
Police visited Brown's 24 Street home in Vernon, where he rented a room in a house with three roommates. Following Brown's arrest at a nearby fast-food restaurant, police returned to Brown's home where one of his roommates unlocked Brown's bedroom and officers conducted a "sweep search" to ensure that evidence was not being destroyed.
The RCMP followed up with a search warrant and seized electronic devices containing sexually explicit material which ultimately led to Brown's conviction.
The original judge in the case did agree the "sweep search" of Brown's bedroom was "unreasonable," but concluded the evidence obtained as a result of the search warrant was valid.
Court of Appeal Justices Elizabeth Bennett, David Harris and Richard Goepel agreed with the original judge's finding, dismissing Brown's appeal in a Kamloops courtroom Oct. 3.
Court documents from the hearing showed Brown contacted teenage girls in the Philippines and offered money in exchange for the girls providing naked photos or engaging in sexual acts.
"Many of these victims expressed that they needed the money for food, school registration, school uniforms or medicine," the documents read.
The court documents say Brown was married to a 22-year-old Philipino woman and spent six months each year in the Philippines.
Evidence filed in court showed 28 Western Union money transfers Brown had sent to victims in the Philippines. The sums of money are described as "paltry" by Canadian standards but "significant" to "poor victims located in a third world country."
Over 400 pages of internet messages were used as the evidence during the trial and described by the judge as "graphic and disturbing."
In one instance Brown encourages one victim to sexually touch her 11-year-old sister so he could watch on a webcam.
"Brown convinced the young victims to send him naked pictures of themselves, offered to send them pictures of his penis, urged the victims to sexually touch themselves, their minor friends, their younger siblings or their mothers," reads the document. "In some cases Wayne Brown urged the guardians to sexually touch or sexually interfere with their daughters, all of which was done for the promise of financial payment by Wayne Brown."
The judge said Brown was "preying upon... financial desperation" and describes him as "cavalier" in his attitude and "callous."
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