ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — The Telegram
A man who asked a judge to let him go to jail ahead of his sentencing hearing so he could get a head start on the jail time has been officially sentenced.
Christopher Barnes was given a seven-month prison term earlier this month for internet child luring. With enhanced credit for the time he has been in Her Majesty’s Penitentiary since he was convicted last October, Barnes has 42 days left to serve.
In 2017, Barnes, now 56, used his employer’s truck and cellphone to meet with what he thought was a 15-year-old girl with the intention of paying her $150 for sexual acts.
The child he had arranged to meet was actually an RNC officer, who had posted a message on a local adult classified site. While a number of men responded to the message, they backed out of contact upon learning the age of the “girl.” Barnes did not, telling her he was OK with it.
Over the course of three months, Barnes communicated with the girl by email and in texts, writing sexually explicit messages, asking her for nude photos and sending her photos of his naked buttocks. He asked the girl if he could be her “sugar daddy,” and asked for prices on sexual services. The undercover officer replied with a list of rates for various sexual acts, including one for $150.
Later in the month, Barnes sent a photo of $150 cash, texting, “All this could be yours.”
Barnes arranged to meet the girl outside a St. John’s fast-food restaurant one morning in mid-August, and showed up in a company truck. An investigation of the cellphone number he was using indicated it belonged to the same company.
Barnes was arrested and a police search of the truck turned up a cellphone — which contained the text and email conversations with the undercover officer — as well as $150 cash in the centre console.
Barnes made a last-minute deal with the Crown and pleaded guilty to two child luring charges.
The Crown had argued for a 14-month jail sentence for Barnes, while the defence wanted eight months. Both sides suggested Barnes’ sentence should be reduced by two months to compensate for police breaching his rights when they searched his cellphone without a warrant upon his arrest.
A pre-sentence report determined Barnes to be remorseful and to have taken responsibility for his crimes, and evaluated him as being at a low risk to reoffend.
Those were mitigating factors in the case, said provincial court Judge David Orr, but there were also aggravating aspects, including the duration of the conversation, the content of the messages and the fact that Barnes had arranged to meet the child and attempted to do so.
Orr sentenced Barnes to nine months in jail, reducing it to seven to account for the breach of his rights, followed by two years of probation with mandatory counselling as required.
Orr also compelled Barnes to submit a DNA sample to a police database and ordered him registered on the national sex offender list for 10 years.