19-year-old facing 29 child porn charges involving 15 victims

Seamus Martin Weeks, 19, is facing 29 criminal charges related to invitation to sexual touching, possessing and making child pornography, extortion and uttering a threat.

The file involves 15 children so far, court heard.

Central Saanich Police are not clarifying how old the alleged victims are at this time but say the charges arose out of online communications with children as far away as the United States and central B.C.

All of the alleged victims were old enough to be online, police said.

Weeks was arrested at his Central Saanich home June 29, based on incidents that allegedly happened between November 2015 and June 2016.

Police say they'd like to talk to anyone with information that may relate to the ongoing investigation by the Integrated Child Exploitation team.

"It's a multi-jurisdictional file. There are a number of victims throughout the CRD as well as from Kamloops and the United States," said Cpl. Dan Cottingham of Central Saanich police.

"Online communication has no borders ... We took these allegations very seriously and put a lot of resources into these files. It took a number of months to bring it to the position it is in now. It is still on-going, but he is before the courts now."

Cottingham said police did not initially release information to the media given the sensitive nature of the allegations.

"Because it's communications online, the number of victims could be much more. We don't know. We don't have knowledge there are more, but there could be more."

Weeks appeared for an arraignment hearing Oct. 20.

He will appear Dec. 1 after consulting with a lawyer and receiving disclosure.

Weeks was initially arrested in June and released on $5,000 bail with conditions which included reporting to a bail supervisor, remaining in his home, having no contact with named individuals, no access to the internet and no visits to parks, schools or any place a person under 18 may be expected to be present.