WARNING: This story contains graphic details of child sexual abuse, and may affect those who have experienced or been impacted by it.
An Ottawa man who took sexual advantage of boys he had access to through teaching and youth justice work in the capital, among others, has received a “nearly unprecedented” sentence of 13.5 years in prison for his “extremely varied and heinous” crimes, a judge has ruled.
Kevan Henshaw, 33, earlier pleaded guilty to 22 charges for offences he committed over two years, including sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching involving boys under 16, making child sexual abuse material, possession of child sexual abuse material and more. He had been charged last year with more than 70 offences.
Ontario Court Justice Trevor Brown handed down the sentence Aug. 25, after a sentencing hearing was held in May where painful victim impact statements were heard in court. None of the more than 30 named victims in the case can be identified due to a routine publication ban that protects them.
The victim impact statements mostly came from parents and other relatives of the boys Henshaw met as an educational assistant, and parents of other boys he catfished on social media.
The Crown had called for a prison sentence of 18 years, while the defence argued for nine years.
There are four sets of victims:
In their impact statements in May, all the parents said their sons had changed. One was more quick to anger, and others have withdrawn from friends and family and from attending school.
Two of the parents (a father and a mother) mentioned they themselves were sexually abused as children â the mother by a supply teacher at her school. The father who was abused made his statement via a video message. “Knowing that … [my son] may have these ghosts, these painful memories that he will never escape from, it’s heartbreaking to know that that’s likely what could happen,” he said.
Another mother said her son had reported inappropriate behaviour by another educational assistant before Henshaw’s crimes.
“There seems to be systemic problems with safeguarding at-risk youths from perverts, if I can be so blunt,” she wrote in a statement read aloud by assistant Crown prosecutor Matthew Brown.
She was the woman whose complaint to the Children’s Aid Society about Henshaw spending an inappropriate amount of time with kids outside school eventually brought police to Henshaw’s door.
“I thank God I was so persistent on that day, as if it were not for my alertness and constant questioning … about Mr. Henshaw and suspicions of his actions, he might have still been abusing children as the adults around him paid no mind,” she wrote.
The former friend Henshaw pretended to be on social media to catfish boys addressed court and Henshaw directly via video link. “… I was the face being used behind a profile to attract people, young men and boys, that you were targeting. It was like having my legs ripped out from under me,” she said.
“I felt dirty, as if I myself had done something to harm these kids.”
Perhaps the most powerful statement, the last, came from one of the boys himself: a former inmate at William E. Hay who had been serving a sentence there when he was 13. He was secretly filmed being strip-searched by Henshaw, and wrote that Henshaw also asked him invasive questions about his dating and sexual lives.
“I understand that my behaviour brought me to William E. Hay. But what I want everyone to remember is that I was a child when I was being recorded by Kevan, being filmed in a government facility. If I wasn’t safe from predators there, where am I safe?” the boy wrote in a statement read by Brown.
“While I have been struggling with my own violation by Kevan, I can’t help but think of all the other kids he preyed upon. I think the rage I feel about this is the most difficult thing to manage. It makes me so angry to think of all the boys he strategically got close to just so he could abuse them. … I am sure there are many who don’t get to express themselves here today because they are too scared to come forward, and I am thinking of those kids today.”
Justice Brown told court in August that boys are known for holding in their feelings and trying not to show vulnerability. But while that response is developmentally appropriate for their age, they’ll be haunted by it.
“The sad reality is that … for these teenage boys, there will be no moving from these events until they’re able to confront them,” Brown said.
“What you did will haunt these young men going forward, and the impact of them will be felt at times and places that cannot be predicted.”
Also noteworthy were the victim impact statements that were not filed, according to prosecutors.
“The institutions failed here. The [youth] jail failed, the school board failed. They failed to protect the children they were entrusted with, and they failed to provide victim impact statements,” assistant Crown attorney Sonia Beauchamp told court.
Later in the hearing Henshaw read a letter to the court, addressing each set of his victims and apologizing to them, their families, and his own family and friends.
“I am in a demographic that often reoffends, but please know that I will take every treatment path and I will dedicate myself to every opportunity to beat the odds. Because I am sorry. And I want to live the rest of my life making it up to you and to each and every victim that I’ve harmed,” he said.
He will also “find a way to work against” the “black market” of child pornography “that destroys lives,” he said.
Henshaw decided to plead not guilty a couple months after he was charged, his lawyer, Maggie McCann, told court. He then shared the password to his computer with police and gave a statement incriminating himself.
His high likelihood of reoffending doesn’t take into account his openness, remorse and sincere desire for rehabilitation, she argued.
More than two years were deducted from his sentence for the time he’s spent in jail so far. He will be listed on the sex offender registry for life, and he has to submit his DNA for a national databank.
Upon release he will be barred from possessing weapons for life, and from attending schools, playgrounds, swimming pools and other such spaces where children gather, among other conditions.
