By Daphne Bramham
Vancouver Sun
July 24, 2010
via Khmer NZ
Png / Kenneth Robert Klassen has pleaded guilty to 14 counts of sexual interference with minors and one count of possession of child pornography.
Photograph by: Nick Procaylo, Vancouver Sun
Within hours of Kenneth Klassen arriving in Cambodia, the first of eight girls -- all under the age of 14 and one believed to have been eight -- arrived at his hotel.
In two and a half days, the Burnaby art dealer fondled, touched, probed and had oral sex and intercourse with all eight of them.
He has admitted to that and to having captured at least some of it on video -- "souvenirs" of his trip.
Klassen has also admitted to having sexually interfered with six Colombian girls ranging in age from 11 to 13.
Klassen is a sex tourist.
In May, he pleaded guilty to 14 counts of sexual interference with minors and one count of possession of child pornography after he lost his constitutional challenge of the law.
Sex tourism is shorthand for what predators do who travel to countries where they can sexually abuse, assault and exploit the poorest and most vulnerable. Often, their prey is children.
On Wednesday, Klassen will be sentenced.
The Crown has asked Justice Austin Cullen of the B.C. Supreme Court to sentence the 59-year-old to 12 years in federal prison: 10 years -- the maximum -- in concurrent sentences for having sex with minors and two years for pornography possession.
Klassen's defence team has asked for half that.
If Cullen agrees with the Crown, it will be the longest sentence ever given a Canadian sex tourist. However, this is only the third case to go to trial since the legislation was passed 13 years ago.
What Klassen's case highlights is just how easy it is for well-organized, predatory pedophiles with money to get what they want abroad.
It's so much easier than here, where we have better laws, better enforcement and a better social safety net that means large numbers of children aren't forced to beg in the streets.
Klassen lived in Colombia for 20 years and has admitted that he first had sex with a prepubescent girl when he was 27 or 28. He has admitted his sexual predilection for girls and easy access to them made him "reckless."
His lawyer, Ian Donaldson, told the court that Klassen's abuse of children arose "from the milieu in which he was living" where it was "common" for men to have sex with young girls.
He went on to say that Klassen's offences were "circumscribed by his geographical location," since there is no evidence of him engaging in this kind of "anti-social behaviour" in Canada.
But as Crown counsel Brandon McCabe pointed out, Klassen must have known what he was doing was wrong, because he had his face edited out of all of the homemade videos of him with girls under 14 and he didn't bother doing that with girls over 14.
Among Klassen's claims is that he never had sex with a child in Canada. Too dangerous, which is exactly the reason that Parliament enacted legislation that allows Canadians to be charged in Canada with sex crimes committed abroad.
Here in Canada, Klassen satiated his appetite for prepubescent girls with pornography. Some of it was purchased abroad; some was homemade movies.
(More than two hours of clips from Klassen's collection were viewed by Cullen during the two-day sentencing hearing. Following a request from The Vancouver Sun, Cullen has ordered Crown counsel Brandon McCabe to make descriptions of those clips available to reporters.)
McCabe is asking for the maximum penalty for Klassen, arguing that Klassen's offences were aggravated because of the girls' ages, because some of their statements that they were threatened or coerced by him, and because they were so desperately poor that some didn't have soap.
Donaldson rejected that characterization, even though he called Klassen's actions offensive and illegal.
He claimed that there was no abuse of trust or exploitation. Repeatedly, he referred to what happened as a series of commercial transactions between willing participants.
He called the little girls -- one of whom Klassen gave a teddy bear -- "sex trade workers."
To establish a basis for requesting a sentence of only six years, Klassen's lawyers noted that Donald Bakker, the first Canadian convicted as a sex tourist, received only five years for having sex with seven Cambodian girls under the age of 14, and five years for sexual assault of Canadian women in the sex trade.
Klassen's second lawyer, Leonard Doust, went through a long list of other cases in which children as young as six had been horrifically abused by relatives, teachers and even a former B.C. Provincial Court judge.
He read off horrific descriptions of violence against them and pointed out that the sentences for offences far worse than what Klassen pleaded guilty to were only in the six-to-10-year range.
Doust may have intended to paint his client as a lesser among evils.
But what was also highlighted was a long and sad history of failure to punish these vile pedophiles and predators to the full extent of the law.
Cullen has an opportunity to set a new standard and precedent.
