N.W.T. court hears lasting impacts on survivors of child pornography in sentencing of former nurse

WARNING: This story contains distressing details. 

A Yellowknife courtroom heard Wednesday how child pornography continues to hurt, humiliate and disrupt the daily lives of survivors, through their childhood and into their adulthood.

Those enduring effects were laid bare in two video victim impact statements that were played in Northwest Territories Supreme Court at the sentencing hearing for Mario Laplante.

Laplante was charged in August of 2019, while living in Whatì, N.W.T., and working as a nurse at the community's health centre. 

He was convicted last August of possessing and distributing child pornography. He previously admitted to the charges. 

An RCMP forensic analysis of Laplante's computer found thousands of images and hundreds of hours of video that police said meet the criminal code definition of child pornography. Laplante, who is in his sixties, also made the files available to others through the online file sharing service BitTorrent.

Victim impact statements

On Wednesday, the court heard from two people directly affected by Laplante's crimes. 

The first was a woman who was sexually abused as a child, and whose image was found in Laplante's collection. The second was the mother of a child whose image was in the collection. 

The faces of both women were obscured and their identities are protected by the court. 

The first woman described the lasting impacts of the abuse she experienced as a child: "I suffer every day," she said.

She said her pictures are still on the internet, and she lives in constant fear of someone seeing them. She said she feels like she's being abused over, and over again.

The woman said the trauma she lives with made getting through school, finding work, and trusting people challenging.

She said she was bribed into performing sexual acts on camera, and now she can't accept gifts and feels "very confused about what love really is."

"I feel I do not deserve happiness," she said.

'I no longer believe in the goodness of people'

The second woman spoke about how her child's life has been forever changed by the abuse she experienced.

She said fear consumes her daughter daily and it can make her physically ill.

"She's embarrassed, humiliated and worried that others will see the images," she said.

She said her child is afraid to play outside, and struggles with motivation.

"It's as if my child has a huge burden to carry and all her energy goes to carrying that burden," she said.

"How will this crime affect her future?"

She also said her child's trauma has affected her other children, and that she herself hasn't been able to work full-time and has struggled financially.

"I worry about my daughter's safety," she said. "I am suspicious of everyone. I no longer believe in the goodness of people." 

Judge will view sample of material

In deciding Laplante's sentence, Justice Lousie Charbonneau will view a small sample of the material at the centre of the case, prepared by RCMP, on an encrypted USB drive. 

In an earlier ruling on whether to view the material, Charbonneau said the images are the best evidence of the subject matter of the charges.

She decided she would view samples in her chambers so that explanations of the material would not be "subjectively filtered"  through a witness — "I will be able to make my own direct observations," she said — and so that others in the courtroom would not be subjected to detailed and disturbing descriptions of the images.

Reports from two forensic psychiatrists were also submitted as evidence. 

The two experts, however, disagreed on some points, including on whether pedophilia can be in remission. 

Charbonneau said the court has no means of weighing conflicting expert opinions, and that she may have more questions during the next day of the sentencing hearing.

The sentencing hearing will resume on Thursday.