A man from Saskatchewan has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually abusing a young girl and creating photos and videos of the abuse. Nicholas Melnyk, aged 36, was apprehended by the police following a tip-off from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States to the Saskatchewan Internet Child Exploitation Unit in early 2023. They were alerted about a video posted on Snapchat from an IP address linked to a residence in southern Saskatchewan.
Upon obtaining a search warrant for the suspect’s home, law enforcement officers found numerous images and videos of child sexual abuse on Melnyk’s cellphones. Among the disturbing content, 26 photos and four videos depicted the abuse of a seven-year-old victim by Melnyk on multiple occasions in 2018 and 2019. The child was not related to him, and her identity is protected by a publication ban.
Melnyk pleaded guilty to charges of sexual interference, making child pornography, and possessing child pornography, with the latter term now revised in the Criminal Code to “child sexual abuse and exploitation material.” The court documents revealed that Melnyk confessed to undressing the girl, engaging in inappropriate touching, and encouraging her to touch him.
During the sentencing, the Crown proposed a 15-year sentence, reduced to 12 years under the totality principle, which aims to prevent excessively long sentences for multiple offenses. Conversely, the defense advocated for an eight-year term, which would be reduced to seven years considering totality.
In his ruling issued by the Regina Court of King’s Bench, Justice Graeme Mitchell referenced a 2020 Supreme Court case, R v Friesen, which established a new standard for sentencing in child abuse cases. Mitchell noted that while the Court has increased penalties for child sexual offenses over the years, caution should be exercised when dealing with offences predating certain legal revisions.
Based on the circumstances of the case, Mitchell determined a 13-year sentence for Melnyk, but ultimately imposed a 10-year term after applying the totality principle. The sentence included seven years for sexual interference, two years for producing child pornography, and one year for possessing child pornography.
Melnyk, with no previous criminal record, was not held in custody during the legal proceedings and therefore did not receive any credit for time served.