Table 2
Court case decisions for police-reported online child sexual exploitation and abuse incidents that proceed to court, by select incident characteristics, 2014 to 2020


Table 2
Court case decisions for police-reported online child sexual exploitation and abuse incidents that proceed to court, by select incident characteristics, 2014 to 2020
Table summary
This table displays the results of Court case decisions for police-reported online child sexual exploitation and abuse incidents that proceed to court. The information is grouped by Select characteristics (appearing as row headers), Total, Guilty of any charge in case, Guilty of a sexual offence charge, Stayed, withdrawn, dismissed or discharged and Acquitted, calculated using number and percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Select characteristics TotalTable 2 Note 1 Guilty of any charge in caseTable 2 Note 2 Guilty of a sexual offence chargeTable 2 Note 3 Stayed, withdrawn, dismissed or dischargedTable 2 Note 4 AcquittedTable 2 Note 5
number number percent number percent number percent number percent
Total online child sexual exploitation and abuse 2,770 2,125 77 1,985 72 567 20 51 2
Total online sexual offences against childrenTable 2 Note 6 1,556 1,175 76 1,060 68 333 21 32 2
Total online child pornographyTable 2 Note 7 1,214 950 78 925 76 234 19 19 2
Secondary violations
No secondary violations 1,223 925 76 886 72 256 21 28 2
At least one secondary violation 1,547 1,200 78 1,099 71 311 20 23 1
Single or multi-accused incidentsTable 2 Note 8
Single accused 2,602 2,016 77 1,891 73 510 20 49 2
Multiple accused 168 109 65 94 56 57 34 2 1
Gender of accusedTable 2 Note 9 Table 2 Note 10
Male 2,548 1,988 78 1,867 73 485 19 49 2
Female 51 27 53 23 45 23 45 0 0
Age group of accusedTable 2 Note 9 Table 2 Note 10
12 to 17 years 326 254 78 248 76 70 21 1 0
18 to 24 years 502 376 75 340 68 105 21 15 3
25 to 44 years 1,152 897 78 834 72 221 19 22 2
45 years or older 619 488 79 468 76 112 18 11 2
Number of victims identified in incidentTable 2 Note 11
Single victim 1,091 835 77 787 72 220 20 24 2
Multiple victims 179 123 69 112 63 52 29 4 2
Gender of victimTable 2 Note 9 Table 2 Note 12
Male 118 87 74 83 70 24 20 4 3
Female 942 724 77 683 73 190 20 20 2
Age group of victim (years)Table 2 Note 9 Table 2 Note 12
0 to 11 99 82 83 80 81 13 13 4 4
12 to 17 961 729 76 686 71 201 21 20 2
Accused to victim relationshipTable 2 Note 12
Family (Parent, sibling, other family) 125 98 78 95 76 22 18 2 2
Dating or other intimate partner 104 70 67 65 63 34 33 0 0
Friend 94 76 81 73 78 15 16 1 1
Casual acquaintance 367 272 74 261 71 86 23 8 2
Authority figure 72 53 74 51 71 15 21 3 4
Stranger 222 183 82 166 75 32 14 3 1
Unknown 63 50 79 47 75 6 10 7 11
0 true zero or a value rounded to zero
Note 1

Number of court cases linked to police-reported incidents where there was at least one sexual offence charge. In this analysis, a case represents all charges against an accused person that were processed by the courts at the same time and received a final decision. Given that one accused person may be involved in multiple in-scope police-reported incidents (for example, multiple online child sexual exploitation and abuse incidents), if charges related to the various incidents were processed by the courts at the same time and received a final decision, these incidents would be represented by a single court case. Therefore, to follow police-reported incidents into the court system using linked data and to have more accurate counts of cases that linked to the initial in-scope police-reported incidents, in these instances, the counts of cases and their outcomes are duplicated to account for the various incidents.

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Note 2

Represents the percentage of linked cases completed in adult or youth court (that had at least one sexual offence charge in the case) that received a guilty decision for any offence in the case. Guilty findings include guilty of the offence, of an included offence, of an attempt of the offence, or of an attempt of an included offence. Also includes guilty pleas, and cases where an absolute or conditional discharge has been imposed.

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Note 3

Represents the percentage of linked cases completed in adult or youth court (that had at least one sexual offence charge in the case) that received a guilty decision for a sexual offence charge in the case. Guilty findings include guilty of the offence, of an included offence, of an attempt of the offence, or of an attempt of an included offence. Also includes guilty pleas, and cases where an absolute or conditional discharge has been imposed.

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Note 4

Includes stays as well as court referrals to alternative or extrajudicial measures and restorative justice programs, withdrawals, dismissals and discharges at preliminary inquiry. These decisions refer to the court either putting the charges against the accused on hold or stopping criminal proceedings against the accused.

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Note 5

An acquittal requires that a trial took place and a verdict of not guilty was reached for all the charges presented before the court.

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Note 6

Includes sexual violations against children and other sexual offences where a victim was identified as being a person younger than 18.

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Note 7

Includes offences under section 163.1 of the Criminal Code which makes it illegal to make, distribute, possess or access child pornography.

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Note 8

Excludes cleared incidents where accused information was not reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.

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Note 9

Gender and age breakdowns are based on the data source used. In this table, gender and age are based on information from the Integrated Criminal Court Survey.

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Note 10

Calculations are based on single-accused police-reported incidents where the age and gender of the accused was known. Children under 12 years of age cannot be prosecuted for criminal activities and, as such, are excluded.

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Note 11

Calculations are based on incidents where victim information was reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.

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Note 12

Calculations are based on single-victim incidents where victim information was provided, and the age and gender of the victim was known.

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Note: Online child sexual exploitation and abuse is defined in the current analyses as police-reported cybercrime incidents involving Criminal Code child-specific sexual offences, including child pornography, and other Criminal Code sexual offences where a victim was identified as being a person younger than 18. This table excludes figures for other decisions including final decisions of found not criminally responsible and waived out of province or territory, any order where a conviction was not recorded, the court's acceptance of a special plea, cases that raise Charter arguments, and cases where the accused was found unfit to stand trial. However, percentages are presented with other decision counts factored into the denominator. Numbers presented in this article may be slightly different from the previously published report which preceded this article (Ibrahim 2022) for two reasons: 1. Data in the current article are extracted from pre-production data files that contain specific variables (including personal identifiers) that enable linkage to court records. These files differ from production files which are extracted on specific dates, and which were processed by removing all identifiers, created for the purposes of analysis by a wider audience. 2. Uniform Crime Reporting Survey data are revised annually for the most recent year. Therefore data for 2020 have been revised since the previous article was released.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, Uniform Crime Reporting Survey and Integrated Criminal Court Survey.
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