North Van sex extortion case highlights gap in Canadian law: Carol Todd
Posted August 21, 2014 11:45 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
LOWER MAINLAND (NEWS1130) – A North Vancouver man who pleaded guilty to extorting an underage girl is a reminder of a lack of specific laws to deal with online harassment, says Amanda Todd’s mother.
Carol Todd, who has been an advocate against such torment since her daughter took her own life in 2012, says Mark Webber’s case highlights that current laws are inadequate in dealing with online sex harassment cases.
Webber confessed to threatening and eventually sending an explicit video of an underage girl to her friends after she didn’t give in to his demands to send him nude pictures.
“Technology is moving so fast now,” says Todd. “We try to catch up and then it jumps a few blips ahead.”
Todd says bill C-13, which is working its way through parliament, addresses some of what she’d like to see done but contains too many components which violate privacy rights.
“If you could get the sexting and intimate images as a legislation and then the other stuff as a separate piece, as many people are asking for, then we we can get onto protecting our youth against the things that come out using technology,” says Todd.
Beyond sending the nude video to the victim’s friends, 23-year-old Webber also uploaded the video of the girl to an online porn website.
Webber has yet to receive his sentence, but the Crown is pushing for a nine-month jail term.
