Repeat child porn offender Shane Pattison not eligible for treatment in prison: parole officer

Child porn offender not getting treatment Repeat child pornography offender Shane Pattison fell through the cracks and didn’t get the treatment he needed. Angelina Irinici reports.

Warning: Extremely graphic content

A man twice convicted of child pornography-related offences “fell through the cracks” when it came to receiving treatment while in prison after his first series of offences, according to a lawyer and parole officer.

A long-term offender hearing is underway for Shane Dale Pattison at Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench.

Pattison was deemed a low-risk to reoffend by an intake team when he first went to prison in 2012 after pleading guilty to 53 child porn-related offences. Jessica Diks, his parole officer in the facility, testified Tuesday Pattison’s case management team believed he was at a moderate risk but the low-risk status stayed with him, ultimately hindering him from receiving programming in prison.

Diks said Pattison wanted to receive treatment but no treatment programs were available to him due to his his low-risk status and because he didn’t commit any hands-on sexual offences.

“If an offender was screened out of a program there isn’t really anything that offender can do to get into a program,” Diks said.

She said the sexual offender programming offered wouldn’t have addressed Pattison’s needs and could end up setting him up to be a more serious sexual offender because he could be exposed to offences beyond what he was convicted of.

Pattison, 28, was handed a five-year sentence in 2012 after pleading guilty to 53 child pornography-related charges. The sentence was one of the longest handed down in Saskatchewan for similar offences.

Pattison was caught viewing child porn at a halfway house in 2015 not long after he left prison on legislated statutory release. Last June, he pleaded guilty to 41 counts of distributing child pornography and one count of possessing it.

Sgt. Darren Parisien with the Saskatchewan Child Exploitation Unit said Pattison’s collection of child pornography was “far more depraved” the second time he was convicted.

He said the majority if Pattison’s collection involved females between the age range of babies to eight year olds and that Pattison told him he couldn’t stop himself from viewing child porn even though he wanted to.

Parisien testified more than 1,300 investigations were launched into other offenders and dozens of children were saved as a result of Pattison’s case.

Crown prosecutor Lana Morelli and defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle have filed a joint submission arguing that Pattison be deemed a long-term offender. They are asking Pattison be sentenced to seven years in prison, followed, upon his release, by a 10-year supervision order, which is the maximum length for a long-term offender.

In order for Justice Richard Danyliuk to designate Pattison a long-term offender, lawyers must prove that Pattison fits the criteria of a long-term offender: that a prison sentence of two years or more would be appropriate for the offences, that there’s substantial risk of reoffending that will cause harm, and that the risks posed can eventually be controlled in the community.