*Warning: This story contains disturbing details.

A retired assistant fire chief in Colwood has been sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.

George Wright, 69, was sentenced in the Western Communities Provincial Court by Judge Ted Gouge on Monday (July 31).

According to Gouge鈥檚 written reasons for sentencing, Wright admitted that on Oct. 15, 2020 he was in possession of more than 1,000 electronic images of child pornography downloaded from the internet between 1997 and 2020.

The images depicted children aged three to 12 engaged in sexual acts with adults and other children.

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While the Crown sought a six-month sentencing, followed by two years of probation, Gouge determined the graphic nature of the images Wright possessed warranted the longer sentence.

鈥淢r. Wright gathered and stored more than 1,000 images of child pornography over a period of 23 years. Some of those depicted acts of sexual aggression by adults upon children and by children upon other children. His offence is much more grave than, for example, the case of a person who downloads and stores a single image of a naked child which does not depict any sexual activity,鈥� wrote Gouge.

Following the prison sentence, Wright will be subject to three years of probation with multiple conditions.

Conditions include not possessing a device capable of accessing the internet or storing images unless authorized by his probation officer, not to accept a job at, or attend a location where people under the age of 14 could be expected to be present, not to be in the presence of people under the age of 14 without another adult, and participate in any psychiatric treatment or counselling as ordered by his probation officer.

Wright must also comply with the provisions of the Sexual Offender Information Registration Act for 10 years, which includes providing a DNA sample to authorities.

In the sentencing document, Wright 鈥� a former volunteer assistant fire chief with Colwood Fire Rescue who retired in 2012 鈥� was described as having no prior criminal record and having been employed at a supermarket for 40 years and as a volunteer firefighter for 25.

Wright was described as being 鈥渋n poor physical health鈥� with Type 2 diabetes, hearing loss and osteoarthritis among his ailments. Gouge noted Wright鈥檚 mental health 鈥渋s difficult to assess.鈥�

鈥淢ost people are horrified and repelled by images of child pornography. Some people are sexually aroused by such images. Mr. Wright says that he is neither,鈥� wrote Gouge. 鈥淗e says that he was intellectually curious about how to access child pornography, about 鈥榟ow far are they going to take this鈥� and about 鈥榓re they going to kill this kid 鈥� ?鈥� He said, 鈥業 wanted to track how bad had it got.鈥欌��

Wright鈥檚 counsel told the court while Wright recognized what he was doing was illegal, he did not realize accessing child pornography would encourage and support those who produce and distribute it, and when a friend explained this to him, Wright claimed he stopped downloading the images, but it was noted he did not destroy the images.

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