A former assistant fire chief for the City of Colwood has been sentenced to one year of incarceration after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.
George Wright admitted to being in possession of more than 1,000 images of child pornography, which he downloaded from the internet between 1997 and 2020.
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Court documents say that Wright is 69-years-old and is in poor health. His doctor confirmed a long list of health conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, hearing loss, psoriasis, bifascicular heart block, osteoarthritis and more. The judge noted that no information could be provided about how his condition might be adversely affected in prison.
Although the court noted that Wright had no previous criminal record, that is of less significance to the sentencing due to the fact that he engaged in the crime for a 23-year period.
Wright was a supermarket clerk for 40 years before he retired, and for 25 or those years he was a volunteer firefighter. He managed to rise through the ranks over the years until he made assistant fire chief. In 2007 and again in 2012, he was awarded the Fire Services Exemplary Service Medal by the Government of Canada for his volunteer work.
“His colleagues in the fire department speak well of him,” court documents say.
In addition, it was said that Wright’s mental health has been difficult to assess.
“Wright states that he has never experienced sexual intercourse. He once kissed a woman, but that was his only sexual experience. The following passage appears in the report of Dr. Kreklewitz:
“Mr. Wright denied a history of significant intimate relationships. … He denied ever having a girlfriend or being married, and elaborated that “I never wanted one,” said Dr. Kreklewitz, a psychologist who interviewed Wright. “Mr. Wright explained that he did not want a partner because, ‘women have moody cycles … I just couldn’t handle it.’”
“While on the surface Mr. Wright seemed to express concern regarding harm to the victims …, he appeared emotionally detached as he described what he viewed. At no point did he describe feeling negative emotions such as disgust, anger or sadness, that one might expect someone to experience when viewing child pornography if they were not doing so for sexual purposes. Further, absent from his comments was any mention of the victims’ pain, suffering or fear during the abuse, or any potential long-term impacts to victims,” added Kreklewitz.
Wright did have a chance to address the judge, and expressed his regret for what he had done and for the impact his actions had on victims.
He also assured the court that he would never reoffend, although the judge characterized his words as “absent of any emotional affect.”
“In the end, I don’t think that it matters very much whether Mr. Wright’s characterization of his motive is truthful or accurate,” said the judge. “People make child pornography because other people download and watch it. Anyone who downloads it increases the market demand for the product, and so encourages its manufacture and distribution. Whatever his motive, Mr. Wright materially increased that demand over a 23-year period.”
The doctor’s assessment of Wright was that he is a low to moderate risk for reoffending.
The Crown sought a six-month sentence for Wright for his crime, while the defence sought a conditional sentence order, followed by probation.
However, the judge ultimately decided that the crime was serious enough that six months incarceration was not appropriate.
In the end, Wright was sentenced to one year in prison, as well as three years probation. During probation, he must follow a list of conditions, some of which include not being in the presence of any person under the age of 14, unless other adults are present. He must also not attend any school, public park, playground, swimming pool or recreation centre where children under 14 years are.
He will also have to be on the sexual offender list for 10 years. His electronic devices, which were seized when he was arrested, are to be forfeited and destroyed.
