Halifax woman jailed for pimping-related charges involving girls aged 14, 15

Tashlynn Marie Shaw arrives at Halifax provincial court on June 19, 2014.

HALIFAX -- A young Halifax mother has been jailed 30 months on pimping-related charges involving two girls aged 14 and 15.

Tashlynn Shaw admitted driving the girls to meet clients, booking hotels for them and buying them liquor.

Both girls had already been working as prostitutes, but she admitted to coercing both into continuing such work.

"There was some degree of choice here on the part of (the girls) but nonetheless, this was very destructive behaviour ... in exploiting the vulnerability of two young teenage girls for financial gain," said Judge Robert Wright of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.

Shaw, 25, is a single mother who said she was financially destitute and caring for an infant daughter.

The written ruling was released Monday from a sentence handed down last week. Shaw had pleaded guilty to two counts off living off the avails of underage prostitutes, two charges of exercising control over them, and a single charge of assault with a weapon on the younger girl. Sixteen other charges were dropped.

According to an agreed statement of facts, Shaw befriended the girls. She "cajoled and coerced" the 15-year-old to stay in the sex trade when she tried to quit, and several times asked the 14-year-old to fill in for the older girl on calls.

Shaw assaulted the younger girl while brandishing a "police style" baton and a steak knife, pulling out clumps of her hair and leaving the girl with a swollen face, black eye, scrapes and other injuries, according to the statement of facts.

Shaw had testified the girls came to her because they didn't have driver's licences, bank cards or a website, and she was being compensated for the help.

She also told a probation officer she didn't think she'd get in trouble, and that she was not thinking about the consequences for the two girls. Shaw lived on social assistance, and had been unemployed for years since her last job at a dollar store.

The crimes carry a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in jail. Wright said he was sentencing Shaw to "a notch above" that.