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A father in his 30s who had sexually explicit conversations with a 12-year-old girl and exchanged nude photos with her online will serve a two-year conditional sentence after pleading guilty to a charge of child luring in North Vancouver provincial court.
Nathan Gregory Russell, 33, of Abbotsford, was handed six months of house arrest with exemptions for work and medical emergencies, followed by 18 months of obeying an overnight curfew and three years’ probation after a hearing before Judge Patrick Doherty on Dec. 6.
Man met girl on social media singing app Smule
Crown counsel Arianna Ward described how Russell, then living in North Vancouver, met the girl online on the social media singing app Smule in December 2018. He told the girl she had a nice voice. The girl told Russel she was 16. They exchanged photos online, said Ward, noting the photos the girl sent of herself “were consistent” with those of an older 16 or 17-year-old.
Russell told the girl he was 29, turning 30.
Initially they talked about their hobbies. “He told her he liked singing and sex,” said Ward.
Later, at the girl’s suggestion, the two switched their conversations to Google Hangout chat, because that was the only form of social media the girl said she was allowed to use.
“He told her he loved her and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her,” said Ward.
Conversations later turned sexual, with Russell sending the girl naked photos of himself and having sexual conversations.
“If you were here with me I would take all your clothes off and throw you against the wall,” he wrote to the girl in one exchange.
Just before her 13th birthday, the girl told Russell what her actual age was.
Man asked 12-year-old to send nude photos
“That doesn’t change anything,” he responded in online messages.
He then asked her to send him nude photos of herself, which she did.
At one point Russell suggested that the girl install SnapChat on her phone at school, then uninstall in at home, so her parents wouldn’t know about their conversations.
The girl later told police she was lonely and depressed at the time she was talking to Russell online. “She felt like her parents weren’t there for her. And she had nobody in the world,” said Ward.
The conversations between Russell and the girl were discovered by the girl’s mother in October 2019, when the mother looked at what her daughter had been discussing in Google Hangout on the girl’s tablet and came across the nude photos which appeared to be of a man “significantly older than her daughter.”
Mother discovered messages on tablet
Using her daughter’s account, the mother wrote a scathing note to Russell telling him not to contact her daughter again. “She’s only 12 years old, you perverted bastard. You have a little daughter? How would you feel if some sick pedophile did this to her? At her age?” the mother wrote. “It is because of people like you that this world is turning ugly.”
She then confronted her daughter, who admitted she knew Russell was in his 30s.
In a fit of anger, the mother took her daughter’s tablet and wiped it clean. A lot of the evidence was lost, said Ward, but the mother was later able to access some of the conversations using her daughter’s account on her own phone.
After the mother went to police, the RCMP’s child exploitation unit and the North Vancouver RCMP tracked the messages to Russell’s internet service account.
A psychiatric report pointed to Russell as having a “moderate” risk of re-offending, said Ward, noting he asked the girl for naked photos knowing she was underage.
Man tells judge he is ashamed
Russell’s defence lawyer said his client is a caring husband and father, who was “dealing with major life stressors” leading up to the online exchanges. “He was lonely at the time and not thinking right,” said the lawyer.
Russell told the judge he is ashamed of what he did. “I’ve always been against stuff like that,” he said. “I’m not happy about anything I did back then.”
As part of his probation, Russell must not volunteer or be employed around anyone under 16 unless with the express permission of his probation officer, must not use a computer to communicate with anyone under 16 except for immediate family, must not maintain profiles on social media, including Smule, must not delete his internet browsing history and must delete all images of the girl if they are stored on any electronic device. He must also abide by a court order restricting him from being in a position of authority over anyone at or under the age of 16 for a period of 10 years.
