Kelowna RCMP didn’t need to look far when searching Daniel Perez’s home under suspicion he’d been downloading child sexual abuse and exploitation material.

As police moved through his home, they found his laptop open, and on the screen were images of children being sexually exploited.

In total, they found 1,724 pictures and 16 videos of child sexual abuse and exploitation on a USB flash drive plugged into the laptop.

On June 30, Perez appeared in a Kelowna courtroom having pleaded guilty to possessing the material.

According to a recently published June 30 BC Supreme Court decision, police were tipped off about Perez after Microsoft notified authorities that a user on its platform had uploaded a file of suspected of containing child sexual abuse and exploitation material.

The IP address was that of Perez’s Kelowna home.

“The child sexual abuse and exploitation material images in Mr. Perez’s possession ranged in severity from images depicting children in erotic poses to even more heinous images of sexual activity… between children and adults,” Justice Maria Morellato said in the decision.

Crown prosecutors wanted the 57-year-old to spend 18 months in jail, while his defence lawyer argued Perez was isolated, depressed and unemployed at the time and should spend two years under house arrest.

The decision said Perez had a chaotic upbringing and was sexually and physically abused as a child. He’d only recently started to deal with it through counselling.

He was married for 13 years and has two adult children. He separated in 2006 and has not had a sexual encounter with another person since then and wasn’t interested in having a romantic relationship.

The pandemic saw him get laid off, and he became isolated, depressed and anxious. Somewhere along the way, he began accessing pornography daily, at first homosexual adult pornography.

“He explained that while watching adult pornography, he stumbled upon child pornography, noting such material ‘kept popping up worse,’” the Justice said. “He stated that while watching child pornography, he ‘lost track of time. A whole day would go by.’”

He said it disgusted him and made him “sick to his stomach,” but he continued.

“Mr. Perez stated that he kept hoping he would see something good happen to the children. It is not clear what he considered that to be,” Justice Morellato said.

A psychological report found that while he expressed remorse for his actions, he switched between accepting responsibility and rationalizing his behaviour because of his own childhood sexual abuse.

“The gravity of the offence committed by Mr. Perez is significant and ought not be minimized or tolerated. Mere possession of child pornography, particularly of the egregious sort viewed by Mr. Perez for sexual gratification, in effect, supports and maintains the sexual abuse, degradation, and violent acts against defenceless children integral to producing child pornography,” the Justice said.

Justice said regardless of Perez’s circumstances, house arrest wasn’t a viable option when it came to the objectives of deterrence or denunciation.

Ultimately, Perez was sentenced to eight months in jail.