An Ontario man accused of sexually abusing a preschool-aged girl as a horrified undercover officer watched online has been remanded in custody.
The 34-year-old St. Thomas man is facing multiple sex and child pornography offences following a month-long online undercover investigation that involved the St. Thomas police, the Toronto police, and the provincial police child pornography section.
Police had been investigating the man since January but the case took an unexpected turn on Sunday when he allegedly transmitted a private live feed to undercover officers.
Police allege the man sent live online images of the preschooler as she was being sexually abused.
"I can't get into details of what exactly happened, but certain things in the images and in the chat with the person, it was obvious that it was happening live," Det. Const. Paul Krawzcyk, who has been with the world-renowned child exploitation unit for four-and-a-half years, said at a press conference on Thursday.
"We see these images and unfortunately we see a lot of them, many times a day even," he said at a news conference.
"But to see this child and look in that child's eyes and realize that that child was live somewhere and we had the possibility to save the child right then, it's difficult to describe."
Despite his years of experience in Toronto's child exploitation section, seeing the images made him feel ill, Krawczyk said.
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