In some cases, police say, the boys took and shared photos of themselves in order to get pictures in return. Police have said more than 20 female victims were targeted in the case and most of them were students who attended Bridgewater Junior Senior High School. The teenagers will return to court on July 31 for sentencing. 'Once we have those results, we will be able to make an informed position for the judge.' So the ball is in their court, and we do hope they're not simply saying they are remorseful and they can actually show it,' he said. 'We'll find out how they respond to that programming, and depending on how they respond, that will likely inform our position. (CBC)ĭostal says he hopes the programming will 'bring home the significance of these offences.' 'The programming itself is designed to recognize the intimate connection that these allegations and these offences have had with the relatively small community of Bridgewater Junior and Senior High School.'Ĭrown attorney Peter Dostal said he's pleased the victims won't have to go through the court process now that guilty pleas have been entered. 'We made the decision to keep this within the court system and we think that's necessary because of the seriousness of these allegations,' said Dostal.

The boys have agreed to attend educational training, similar to restorative justice. They were all youths when they committed the offences in 2015, and their identities are protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. 'The charge of intimate images was the one that best fit the circumstances of this case, so with that concession on the part of the defence we were satisfied with those guilty pleas,' he said.įour of the accused are 15 years old now and two are 18. The six teenagers also faced charges of possession and distribution of child pornography, but Dostal said those charges were dropped. Both accounts were deleted about a month before the principal of Bridgewater Junior Senior High School notified police in May 2015. The first account had approximately 60 nude and suggestive photos, with five people accessing its contents, according to the documents.Ī second account had most of the same images, with four people able to access it. Dropbox is an online file-hosting service. Then the police investigation revealed the existence of two Dropbox accounts that were created in the spring of 2015. The photos were initially sent through texts and the social media site Snapchat, according to the documents. Officers seized a number of electronic devices - mainly cellphones.Īccording to court documents, several female students said they had sent nude photos, but had no idea they were being shared. The six were charged following a year-long investigation by Bridgewater police in response to complaints from school officials. That's a pleasing development for us.' What happened 'Now that we can simply direct our attention toward the penalty phase. 'This is going to mean that we don't have to subject the victims in this matter to the court process, which can have a great amount of stress on them,' said Peter Dostal. The Crown said he's pleased with the outcome, given two weeks had been set aside for a trial.

The sixth teenager was not in Bridgewater provincial court on Wednesday to enter a plea, but his lawyer Geoff Franklin told CBC News his client intends to plead guilty. Five of the six young men accused of sharing intimate images of 20 local high school girls on Nova Scotia's South Shore have pleaded guilty, closing one of Canada's largest prosecutions involving children under a law that came into force two years ago.

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