NEW GLASGOW — Twin brothers were sentenced in provincial court Wednesday to three months in jail for possessing child pornography.
Most of the images downloaded onto home computers by David Scott Hammond and James Cory Hammond, 20, of New Glasgow were drawn in the Japanese style known as anime or manga.
This popular style of drawing is featured in a number of cartoons and comic books, but the kind the brothers downloaded onto their home computers was pornographic because it depicted drawings of children in sexual situations.
The brothers each pleaded guilty to the charge that was laid last November after police found an unusually high number of the drawings on their computers.
"Every one of these images involves the victimization of children," said Crown attorney Craig Botterill. "The victimization wouldn’t happen in the first place if there weren’t people there to look at this material."
David Hammond’s lawyer, Doug Lloy, told the court his client did not know it was illegal to download pornographic images of children if they were drawn.
Mr. Lloy said the brothers are two "fairly introverted young men" who turned to computers for their social life.
He described his client as being in a "non-deviant" homosexual relationship and said he had only a secondary interest in young children.
A forensic psychiatric report on Cory Hammond that was read in court indicated he had a strong sexual response to pubescent boys.
Judge Theodore Tax ordered the men to serve their jail time on weekends and specified they be housed in protective custody and not with the general jail population.
Cory Hammond’s lawyer, Steve Robertson, said it would not be a good idea to put the rather shy, quiet and unsocialized men in with most of the other inmates.
"They are the most un-streetwise men, who have so little social skills," he said. Putting them in the general jail population would be like throwing them "to the wolves."
Mr. Robertson said the court must take into consideration that his client was open and honest with the court-ordered psychiatrist, admitting he knew what he did was wrong and asking for help.
"He is not an experienced criminal trying to gild the lily," Mr. Robertson said.
Judge Tax asked that the pair be allowed to serve their time in the Antigonish jail rather than at the provincial jail in Dartmouth.
Afterward, they will be on probation for 18 months and must take a sex offender treatment program. Their names will be listed with the national sex offender registry and they will have to provide a DNA sample to police.
They are also forbidden to be anywhere near children or where children might be.
Judge Tax described the men as unsophisticated, introverted and remorseful.
"This is a crime that victimizes young people around the world," Judge Tax said. "It creates a market which then re-victimizes the most vulnerable in society.
"The images can only be regarded as disgusting and perverse."