Victoria sexting teen given conditional discharge
A B.C. teenager who was found guilty on child pornography charges after "sexting" naked images of her boyfriend's former girlfriend has been handed a six-month conditional discharge.
The 18-year-old — who cannot be named as all those involved were 16 at the time of the offence — must send a letter of apology to the the victim. If she does that, she will have no criminal record and will not face prison.
The teen was convicted in January 2014 of possessing and distributing child pornography and uttering threats.
"I'm sorry for my part in this," the girl said in court Monday. "If I could take it back, I would.
"This is not who I am."
The court found that she had texted nude pictures of her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend to a friend and posted one to the victim's Facebook page in an attempt to humiliate the girl.
In an emotional interview with CBC's The Currentin February of this year, the convicted girl described how her life had been affected since the charges, with her grades dropping dramatically and having to change schools because of bullying.
'I was just angry'
Asked if she thought what she had done was cyberbullying, she said it was, and that she understood it should be taken seriously, but that she didn't think the court understood how central technology is to teens' lives.
"I was just angry," she said. "And I didn't know it was illegal. Obviously, I knew it wasn't right."
In the same interview, Christopher Mackie, the girl's lawyer, said that his client had suffered enough over the past two years and that he would be asking for no further penalties.
On the day of the incident, his client had been with her then boyfriend, Mackie said, when he discovered his former girlfriend had been sharing naked pictures of him. When Mackie's client found out that her boyfriend still had naked images of his ex, she sent one to the ex via a private message on Facebook. He said his client also texted some images to her own best friend.
Though his client's actions "fit the factual definition" of the child pornography charges, Mackie said that they were not meant to apply to youth, but to protect young people from pedophiles.
