Cambridge man arrested in Jamaica found guilty of making child porn

Guilty pleas in region's first sex tourism case From CTV Kitchener's Alexandra Pinto: A Cambridge man who admitted to sexual offences against a child in Jamaica was sentenced to jail time.

The first “sexual tourism” case ever heard in Waterloo Region came to a close Monday as a Cambridge man pleaded guilty to sexual interference and making child pornography.

Stanley Saunders, 55, was then sentenced to 6.5 years in prison, bringing an end to an investigation that began nearly a decade ago.

In 2009, court documents show, Saunders uploaded images of sexual abuse of a young girl to the photo sharing service Flickr.

Somebody working for Flickr noticed the images and contacted police, who searched Saunders’ home that fall.

Officers found proof that Saunders had the images, but no proof that he had made them. He was charged with possession of child pornography, found guilty, and sentenced to five months in jail.

During this period, the investigating officer continued to build a case against Saunders, finding chat logs in which Saunders talked about his “sexual interest and exploitation of young children while travelling to Jamaica.”

Photographs taken of Saunders while he was in custody provided further evidence – because they showed tattoos that matched the ones in the pictures posted to Flickr.

It wasn’t until 2015 that police were able to identify a girl believed to be the one from the images.

Two Waterloo Regional Police officers flew to Jamaica to interview the girl, who was living in poverty with her family.

“We had images of a young girl, and the police had to take some significant steps to identify the victim,” Crown attorney Mark Poland said following Monday’s plea and sentencing.

The girl, who by 2015 was in her late teens, told police that Saunders was a family friend who had sexually abused her on his trips to Jamaica from 2004 through 2009. During that period, she was seven to 12 years old.

Saunders’ “distinctive tattoos” made it “simple and straightforward” for the girl to identify Saunders as the person in the photographs, Poland said.

Saunders was arrested in Jamaica in February 2016, and taken back to Canada the following month.

With credit for the time he spent in custody in Jamaica and Canada, he has approximately five years of his sentence left to serve.

Authorities in Jamaica are continuing to look into Saunders as well.

With reporting by Nicole Lampa