Repeat child porn offender gets four-year sentence for ‘significant collection’

A man from Hafford, Sask. has been handed his second penitentiary sentence in six years for child pornography offences.

The hope is that this time, Kelly Douglas Beleznay will receive institutional programming for the compulsive behaviour that he struggles to control, legal aid lawyer Shane Kozakavich said Tuesday in Saskatoon provincial court.

Beleznay, 55, clasped his hands and looked at the floor before he was taken into custody to serve a four-year sentence for accessing and possessing 67,000 child pornography files.

Court heard he was arrested in June 2020 after the Saskatchewan Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit received seven separate complaints about child porn being accessed online between January and March 2020.

The COVID-19 outbreak delayed the execution of a search warrant at the home in Hafford where Beleznay lived with his elderly parents, Crown prosecutor Linh Lê told court.

When the search was conducted, officers found five USB devices hidden in a container in the basement, a laptop and handwritten notes of child porn-related search terms, according to the agreed facts.

Beleznay’s parents indicated “they don’t go downstairs and aren’t very tech savvy,” Lê said. Court heard Beleznay has struggled to find work after having a stroke.

Judge Morris Baniak accepted a four-year joint submission from the Crown and defence based on the “significant collection” of victims as young as three months old, and the fact that this has happened before.

In 2014, Beleznay received a three-year prison term after pleading guilty to possessing 60,000 child porn files and sharing 4,000 of them with other users.

At the time, the sentencing judge indicated Beleznay showed an “appalling” lack of remorse and insight.

On Tuesday, Kozakavich said his client realizes this isn’t a victimless crime. He wants to get the offender-specific programming he didn’t receive before he was paroled eight months into his previous three-year sentence, court heard.

After his release from prison, Beleznay is banned from accessing social media and communicating online with children under 16 years old, and from going to parks, pools, playgrounds or anywhere children congregate, for 15 years.

— with StarPhoenix files

bmcadam@postmedia.com

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