HALIFAX – A second young man accused in a prominent child pornography case in Halifax is scheduled to stand trial today.
The man, who cannot be identified because he was a minor at the time of the offence in the fall of 2011, is charged with distributing child pornography.
A 20-year-old man also charged in the case was given a conditional discharge earlier this month after he pleaded guilty to making child pornography.
An agreed statement of facts delivered in that man’s case in September says he took a photograph of another male youth who smiled and gave a thumbs up while having sex with a 15-year-old girl who was vomiting out a window.
In reading the agreed statement of facts into the court record, the Crown said the girl was not aware that the picture was being taken and did not give consent to it.
The Crown also said that the man in that case told police he sent the photo to the male youth who had sex with the girl and he is not alleged to have sent it to anyone else.
But the Crown said the image was distributed to numerous people, most of whom attended the same high school the girl did.
The girl, whose identity is protected by a mandatory publication ban, died after she was taken off life-support following a suicide attempt in the spring of 2013.
Her family says she was bullied for months as a result of the photo and have voiced their opposition to the publication ban that prevents her from being identified, saying it silences them from telling her story.
Critics of the ban have also named her on social media.
Four days have been set aside in the second young man’s case.
