AFP extension
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Police in the Canadian province of Ontario can use fictitious online sex ads to arrest pedosexuals, the Supreme Court ruled. The ruling follows after four people from the province of Ontario appealed their sentences, he said CBC News.
York Region Police posed as escorts on an advertising website during an undercover investigation between 2014 and 2017. Police suspected that there were also advertisements on that platform that exploited children.
In the ads, the undercover agents pretended to be an 18-year-old female, but once the sex date was set up, an undercover agent revealed that she was actually a minor. Men who said they still wanted sex were sent to a hotel room. When they entered, they were arrested.
A total of 104 men were arrested
In total during this operation arrested 104 men. They were between 18 and 71 years old. It was the first time the Ontario Police had done this.
Lawyers for some of those arrested said the investigation was overly broad, targeting an entire website and not just those seeking minors for sexual services. The Supreme Court disagreed because the ads were placed on a part of the website that was primarily aimed at people who wanted to have sex with very young people.
The ruling doesn’t mean police can now simply apply the same method to all websites, but it could set a precedent for future cases in Canada. The Supreme Court said there are few other methods by which officers can apprehend such sex offenders, but at the same time stressed that police must proceed with caution. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, an action group that fears police will now also investigate larger online platforms, agrees with this, thus violating the privacy of the innocent.
