'Boy Love' Websites. Montreal Is Host to Network for Pedophiles
By Paul Cherry
The Gazette
August 10, 2007
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=fd1ffd53-e19c-487d-bc15-17e9b2997b7e&k=85348&p=1
A sprawling international network of websites promoting discussion about sexual attraction to children is hosted by a Montreal company and has ties to a pedophile group based in the city, The Gazette has learned.
Police say there is little they can do about websites that post items like recommendations of places where pedophiles can watch children at play. But critics allege there is something even more sinister behind groups like Free Spirits, an organization based in Montreal whose website is dedicated to "promoting open communication about boy-lovers."
Watchdog groups like the Winnipeg-based Beyond Borders argue that what is openly posted on Internet sites linked to the Free Spirits group - for example, BoyChat.org, a forum where members discuss "boy love" - should be subject to child pornography legislation.
The following is sample of a recent posting on BoyChat.org:
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| At one point, the Free Spirits website was said to be hosting 85 pedophile websites. Photo by Marcos Townsend |
"Some bright spark in my city has started a chat forum for people who meet on the train system to chat with each other. I think if I used it I could get me into a lot of trouble, especially if I chatted with boys like the private-school boy I saw today - super-sexy, could hardly keep my eyes offa him! Twice today, while training to and fro for different reasons, I was jammed in amongst cuties to die for. Best times to travel are between about 2:50 and 4:00 or so." (The city was not identified in the posting.)
Xavier Von Erck, president of the U.S.-based group Perverted Justice, said that while websites like BoyChat.org are nothing new, the number of pedophiles who use them is growing.
"The whole Free Spirits thing is very, very large and they are very well organized," Von Erck said. "Free Spirits has been around since 1995 and has thousands of members. At one point, they were hosting 85 pedophile websites.
"They take in thousands upon thousands of dollars a year to spread their propaganda and their tips and tricks for other pedophiles throughout the Internet."
Those "tips and tricks" especially upset groups like Perverted Justice.
They claim that websites supported by Free Spirits create an online environment in which pedophiles can branch off and discuss matters like computer encryption to hide child pornography from the police. Von Erck also alleges that funds solicited by Free Spirits are used to provide legal assistance to pedophiles in criminal cases.
Through an exchange of emails, a representative of the committee that runs the freespirits.com website denied Von Erck's allegations.
"Any funds donated to Free Spirits are used to maintain a presence on the Internet, which consists of paying connectivity fees, server hardware and domain registration. Our costs are substantially higher than normal due to the subject matter we host," a representative of the committee wrote in an email.
"Free Spirits exists only to provide the necessary means to foster communication on the subject of boy love. All our hosted forums and sites are open to public scrutiny and are available to anyone as long as they adhere to the rules set by each forum."
The person who wrote the email refused to identify himself but did confirm that Free Spirits had a presence in Montreal for 10 years. He wrote that the group is "currently in transition. Like any other group, committee members retire or relocate, which affects where we keep a presence. There are several proposals to relocate away from Montreal, which we are considering currently."
According to Von Erck and a recent article in Maclean's magazine, some people behind the Free Spirits group are also members of the Montreal Ganymede Collective, described by a former member as a group of 50 to 60 pedophiles based in this city. Some would meet once a week to discuss "boy love." The group appears to have disbanded recently.
According to the Maclean's article, among the founding members of the Montreal Ganymede Collective is Ian Hodgson, 63, a former high school teacher with the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal.
In 1990, Hodgson was convicted of sexually assaulting three of his male students and another boy between 1978 and 1987, when the boys were age 11 to 15. The teacher exploited the boys' interest in computers to get them to visit his home in Dorval and at the school where he taught.
One victim sued Hodgson and the PSBGM for more than $300,000 in a civil case that was eventually settled out of court.
Another founding member, according to the magazine article, is John White, the person listed as the president of Epifora Inc. on the Quebec business registry.
Besides freespirits.com and boychat.org, Epifora has hosted a website produced by Lindsay Ashford, a United States pedophile who recently recommended this month's Fête des enfants de Montréal as a good place for pedophiles to watch young girls at play.
When The Gazette reported on the story last week, someone opened a discussion at boychat.
org about the Canadian media's attitudes toward pedophiles. The person posted the following:
"This is sad. Quebec is a province I've lived in and visited on a number of occasions. (Quebec City) is one of the rare places in North America where boys will still wear Speedos to the lake or to the water park."
(No one from Epifora would return calls requesting an interview for this article.)
Last year, pressure from Perverted Justice persuaded a major Internet service provider to remove Epifora and the websites it supports. It has since found another company willing to provide it with space on the Internet.
The company also hosts a website run by John Robin Sharpe, a British Columbia man who was convicted in 2004 of having sex with a boy. He was also part of a high-profile constitutional challenge of Canada's child pornography laws. He lost the 2001 Supreme Court case. A year later, Sharpe was convicted in a B.C. court of two counts of possessing more than 400 photographs that met the legal definition of child pornography.
Sharpe, who now lives in Montreal, was once invited to lecture the Montreal Ganymede Collective on the Supreme Court case.
I'm not interested in talking about them," Sharpe said when The Gazette asked him about the group.
Von Erck describes the Montreal Ganymede Collective as the base of, or the decision-makers behind, Free Spirits and Epifora.
He points to a study, published in 2001 by Université de Montréal criminologist Pierre Tremblay, as evidence that members support more than free speech about being pedophiles.
While researching his study, Tremblay interviewed a man who claimed to be a member of the Montreal Ganymede Collective.
The man, identified as J.M., said the Ganymede group did not advocate physical contact. It wanted to be low profile and had strict rules forbidding the exchange of child pornography. But he also said the collective helped members hide child pornography collections on their computers.
J.M. described how, in 2000, while he was being investigated for sexually assaulting a young boy in the Montreal area, a police investigator asked if he could search his computer. J.M. complied but the investigator was not able to find 60 megabytes of child pornography on his computer because a member of the pedophile collective had previously encrypted it for him.
In an interview, Tremblay said the Montreal Ganymede Collective appears to have disbanded. A website related to it disappeared from the Internet about a year ago.
He described the people behind the group as determined, very computer literate and savvy about the Internet's potential as a communication tool.
"They are very astute. They very well know that pedophiles in particular are very isolated, so they need some common point of convergence where they can keep their spirits up and not be overly depressed by social reactions, which are extremely hostile," Tremblay said.
"If I had to make a comparison, they are a group of militants, like with ecological groups or something like that. But you can't say it's a political group, because they don't have any political power. It's an ideological group.
"Some groups want to attract outsiders, convince outsiders of their positions. Other groups, the more deviant groups (like Free Spirits), want to convince latent members of their group to join in."
The Montreal Ganymede Collective resembled the U.S.-based North American Man Boy Love Association, a group that advocates legalizing sex between adults and children, Tremblay said. NAMBLA once proposed merging with the Montreal group, the criminologist said, but the Ganymede members considered the U.S. group to be technologically backward.
Tremblay said he was disappointed when local law enforcement agencies showed little interest in following up on his study.
"I mean, after all, this is in our backyard, in Montreal" and "there are a lot of people involved," he said. "Even if you don't have proof of (a criminal act), you have a reasonable suspicion something will come up.
"These guys met once a week. You could tail them. It's an ordinary police tool. You don't need the permission of the prime minister."
Police forces like the Sûreté du Québec have said there is little they can do about websites hosted by Epifora because, while they come close to breaking the law, the people behind them know how not to cross the line.
That doesn't mean authorities can't investigate, Tremblay argues. "What you investigate are people. It might take six months or a year, but the advantage is you're hitting the organizers."
Montreal police would not comment on whether the Montreal Ganymede Collective or Free Spirits have been investigated as a group.
One police source would say only that there have been investigations into Montreal-based websites similar to freespirits.com. They were based on complaints alleging criminal activity, like sharing encrypted child pornography. But the investigations resulted in no charges.
Rosalind Prober, president of Beyond Borders, the Winnipeg group that helps raise awareness of child exploitation, said the issue shouldn't be limited to allegations of criminal activity. She said debate should focus on what is openly posted on the websites. Beyond Borders began calling attention to Epifora's websites years ago, she said.
"This raises the issue of legal reform on the issue of counselling and advocating sex with children. Maybe we need to update the legislation and have a broader definition of our child pornography laws," Prober said.
"These guys are always playing on the edge. When it comes to what is legal and what isn't, they are laughing at us."
Contact: pcherry@thegazette.canwest.com
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