Sentencing begins for B.C. woman guilty of violent human sex trafficking

Graphic videos showing torture and violent sex assaults have been played at a sentencing hearing for a woman who pleaded guilty in a human trafficking case.

Warning: This story contains graphic details readers may find disturbing

Graphic videos played in a New Westminster, B.C., courtroom on Monday prompted a warning from the judge overseeing sentencing of a woman who pleaded guilty to multiple charges in a child sex trafficking case. 

The videos seized in the human trafficking case against Jennifer Stephens, 31, were played in court during the first day of her sentencing hearing. 

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Terence Schultes cautioned those in the court of the disturbing content of the videos to reconsider whether to watch if they weren’t “battle-hardened by criminal proceedings.” 

Crown attorney Catherine Rose told the court that the prosecution is seeking a 13-year prison sentence for Stephens, who pleaded guilty to 17 criminal charges related to sex trafficking of a minor, and several counts of assault. 

Read more: B.C. woman pleads guilty to multiple charges of human trafficking after 2023 arrest

The videos played in court included a man being pistol-whipped by Stephens, a female victim being whipped by a curtain rod and another showing a man being sexually assaulted with the barrel of a gun. 

Another video showed a man being forced to insert his tongue and genitals into a desk fan, and another depicting a topless female victim crawling along a floor and forced to eat dog food. 

Another clip played for the court showed Stephens and her accomplice Michael Giroux terrorizing a woman in a bathtub, with Giroux stomping on her head and pouring a liquid over her.

An agreed statement of facts said the substance poured on the woman was bleach. 

Giroux pleaded guilty to four charges in Surrey provincial court last year, including unlawful confinement, assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm. 

The court also heard that Stephens and Giroux poured hot sauce into a trafficking victim’s eyes. 

Rose read out the agreed statement of facts at the hearing, outlining Stephens’ violent, drug-fuelled abuse of sex workers, including a 13-year-old girl. 

Stephens pleaded guilty in January last year to multiple charges, including assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement, sexual assault with a weapon and several other offences related to sex trafficking of a person under 18.

Police in Langley, B.C., started investigating the case in February 2023, beginning with a phone number that was linked to a 13-year-old girl who had been trafficked in Alberta and Kelowna, B.C.

The statement says services from the girl had been advertised on LeoList, an online escort platform.

It says photographs on the website led police to a Langley hotel where the victims lived and worked, and officers later discovered the videos on a phone. 

The document says Stephens boasted about having a Snapchat account with “500 clients,” a list she said she refused to sell to other “pimps.”

Rose told the court that the case came together “very quickly,” moving to file “numerous” applications for search warrants after the call came in March 2023 from one of Stephens’ badly beaten victims. 

The court heard that a pre-sentence report on Stephens showed that she has “minimized” her role in the offences, denied being the “mastermind” behind the trafficking operation and was using methamphetamine on a daily basis. 

Rose said the court will hear impact statements on Tuesday from Stephens’ trafficking victims, who can’t be named under a publication ban. 

This report by Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press, was first published on June 8, 2026.