Warning: This story contains disturbing details A Kelowna man has been sentenced to eight months in jail for possession of child sexual abuse material. Police executed a search warrant at Daniel Ros Perez’s home on Oct. 22, 2022 and found him in possession of 1,725 images and 16 videos of child sexual abuse and exploitation material, according to a B.C. Supreme Court sentencing decision issued in late June and published online Tuesday. In the decision, Justice Maria Morellato explains that such materials—abbreviated CSAM—are often categorized along the “Oliver scale,” a five-point range of severity that helps courts understand the content of the images without placing them on the record as exhibits. “For purposes of Mr. Perez’s sentencing, the Crown underscored that there was CSAM material of every category in the possession of Mr. Perez,” Morellato’s decision reads. “The CSAM images in Mr. Perez’s possession ranged in severity from images depicting children in erotic poses to even more heinous images of sexual activity involving penetration and bondage between children and adults.” The children depicted were as young as four to six years old, in the RCMP’s estimation, while the oldest children depicted were 10 to 12, according to the decision. Perez was arrested during the October 2022 search and was released on an undertaking to appear in court in January 2023. Charges were not approved in the case until July 2024, at which point he was arrested and released again, the decision notes. He pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child sexual abuse and exploitation material, a fact Morellato considered mitigating when deciding on an appropriate sentence in the case. Crown prosecutors asked the judge to impose a sentence of 15 to18 months in jail, followed by 36 months of probation. Perez’s defence team asked for a sentence of two years less a day, to be served under house arrest, without any time in jail, followed by two years of probation. Morellato considered several aggravating factors, including the large size of the seized collection, the age of the children and the “heinous” nature of the images, as well as Perez’s admission that he possessed the collection for his own sexual gratification. Perez denied being sexually attracted to children, and told the court he only enjoyed looking at the images “at the beginning.” “He reports that watching child pornography ‘started to disgust him and made it difficult for him to obtain or maintain an erection,’” the decision reads. “When asked why he continued to watch child pornography after he reported that ‘it made him sick to his stomach,’ Mr. Perez stated that he kept hoping he would see something good happen to the children. It is not clear what he considered that to be.” Perez expressed remorse about his offence, though a psychological report presented to the court found he “vacillated between accepting responsibility for his actions and rationalizing his behaviour and attributing it to his own experience of childhood sexual abuse.” Nevertheless, Morellato considered this a mitigating factor. Also mitigating were the fact that the 57-year-old Perez had no prior criminal record, “had an unfortunate upbringing” that included physical and sexual abuse, has attended counselling and shown an openness to future sessions, has not breached the terms of his bail and has been employed since 2023. There was no evidence to suggest that Perez ever made or distributed child sexual abuse material, according to the decision. Morellato concluded that Perez’s “moral blameworthiness” was reduced by the mitigating factors identified, leaving the sentence Crown sought “not fit, proper or fair.” However, she stopped short of issuing a conditional sentencing order, as requested by the defence. “I remain of the view that a term of incarceration for a period of eight months is warranted,” the judge’s decision reads. “I am simply unable to conclude, given the egregious nature of the offence, that a lesser term of incarceration or, alternatively, a conditional sentence order of imprisonment in the community, even at the upper range, would meet either of the objectives of general deterrence or denunciation.” Morellato sentenced Perez to eight months in jail, followed by two years of probation. She also ordered him to provide a DNA sample and register as a sex offender for 20 years.
