Gordon Clark
Staff Reporter

Imported Porn Main Link to Pedophile Suspects

Staff photo by Colin Price George Miller, Burnaby's deputy school superintendent, admits it will be difficult to regain the trust of students and parents.

Police are monitoring nearly 50 men throughout B.C. suspected of making or distributing kiddie porn.

Surrey RCMP are investigating one of them but are not ready to lay charges, B.C.'s top child-porn expert revealed yesterday.

"There is a huge underground organization of distributors of child pornography," said Det. Noreen Waters of the Co-ordinated Law Enforcement Unit, B.C.'s chief child-porn investigator for the past four years.

She said B.C. has no greater child-porn problem than other provinces, despite the arrest of Burnaby principal William Bennest and the conviction of nine B.C. men in the past four years for child-porn offences.

"Ontario has double the amount," Waters said. "I think they are anywhere and everywhere. I think it is fairly rare behavior."

Waters said 90 per cent of the men being watched by police were identified after Canada Customs caught them trying to import child porn from the U.S. and Europe.

In some cases, the men were involved with NAMBLA — the North America Man Boy Love Association, which advocates sex between men and boys — or were importing nudist materials, which is legal in Canada.

Waters said some so-called nudist magazines are marketed to pedophiles by highlighting naked children.

Nudist material becomes illegal if the images focus on children's genital or anal regions, or if the kids are posed provocatively, such as sitting with their legs spread.

Waters said some child pornographers take the legal nudist images of children and superimpose naked adults into the videos to make it appear the children and adults are having sex.

She said most child pornographers are also pedophiles — people who primarily want their sex partners to be children.

Some are in it for the money. A single video can cost $200.