Perv Bishop Gets Time Served for Child Porn

By Tony Spears
London Free Press
January 4, 2012

http://www.lfpress.com/news/canada/2012/01/04/19199211.html

Bishop Raymond Lahey is seen in this May 4, 2011. The self-confessed Internet porn addict was caught with child porn in 2009. TONY CALDWELL/QMI AGENCY

OTTAWA - A former bishop caught with child porn at the Ottawa airport in 2009 will be freed after a judge sentenced him Wednesday to time served.

Raymond Lahey, 71, got 15 months in jail and two years of probation. He has already spent eight months in jail, but received two-for-one credit for the time served.

Lahey pleaded guilty in May to importing child pornography. Border agents had discovered child porn on Lahey's laptop when he re-entered the country on Sept. 15, 2009.

Among 155,000 gay porn files, cops found 588 photos and about 60 videos of child pornography. They also found stories about child slavery, sex and torture.

"Not only is a child victimized ... But the violation of the child rises like a phoenix every time that child is viewed," Judge Kent Kirkland said.

If it weren't for the Raymond Laheys of the world, there would be no market for child porn, Kirkland added.

Facing a one-year mandatory minimum sentence, Lahey — a self-confessed Internet porn addict — elected to start serving his sentence in May.

At Lahey's last court appearance in December, Kirkland gave him two-for-one credit for time served because Lahey's offence took place before the federal government reduced enhanced credit.

The Crown wanted Lahey to serve 18 to 22 months in jail, while defence lawyer Michael Edelson had argued for the minimum.

Edelson noted that the child porn formed less than 1% of Lahey's collection.

A psychiatrist also testified that while Lahey has an interest in boys aged 14 to 18 and a lust for sado-masochism, he is not a pedophile and he is not a risk to the community.

Crown attorney David Elhadad said acts of torture and bondage depicted in Lahey's image collection — nude children hogtied or paddled by youths in religious garb, for example — also appeared in Lahey's collection of erotic stories, suggesting a disturbing fixation.

Lahey addressed the court at the end of his sentencing hearing in December.

"I've come to recognize that I became addicted to Internet pornography on a very indiscriminate basis," Lahey said.

"I know that I've done wrong, not only something illegal, but something that goes against the moral principles I believe in."

Lahey was placed on the national sex offender registry for 20 years.

Contact: tony.spears@sunmedia.ca