The Northwest Territories Court of Appeal has upheld a community-based sentence for a man who pleaded guilty to making child pornography, the term used in the Criminal Code, after photographing a sleeping teenage girl in a sexualized state.

John Henry Dillon admitted that he took the photographs when he was 19 and the victim was 17. According to the original sentencing decision, the images indicated that the victim had been touched and that some of her clothing had been removed.

The Crown withdrew separate charges of sexual assault and voyeurism by electronic means after Dillon entered his guilty plea.

N.W.T. Territorial Court Judge Robert Gorin described Dillon’s conduct as a serious betrayal of a vulnerable victim. Her impact statement said the offence resurfaced earlier trauma and left her experiencing anxiety and nightmares.

Nevertheless, Gorin imposed a conditional sentence of two years less one day, allowing Dillon to serve the sentence in the community.

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Dillon was ordered to remain under house arrest for the first year, subject to exceptions including work and medical appointments. A nightly curfew applies during the second year. He must also complete 100 hours of community service, abstain from drugs and alcohol, avoid contact with the victim and serve a further two years of probation.

The Crown had sought a jail sentence of two years less one day.

Judge struck mandatory minimum using hypothetical teenager

The Criminal Code prescribed a minimum sentence of one year for making child pornography. Gorin found that the minimum would not be cruel and unusual punishment if imposed on Dillon himself.

Instead, the judge declared the provision unconstitutional based on a hypothetical case involving an 18-year-old who retained a nude image of a 17-year-old romantic partner after promising to delete it.

Gorin concluded that automatically imprisoning such a hypothetical offender for one year would be grossly disproportionate and violate Section 12 of the Charter.

The judge said nine months in custody would otherwise have been an appropriate sentence for Dillon. Still, he selected a longer conditional sentence after considering Dillon’s guilty plea, lack of a criminal record, Indigenous background and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder diagnosis.

Appeal court finds no reversible error

The Crown appealed both the constitutional ruling and the sentence. Justices Jo’Anne Strekaf, Kevin Feehan and Faiyaz Alibhai rejected the appeal, according to Cabin Radio’s report on the appellate decision.

The panel concluded that Gorin had committed no error in principle and that the conditional sentence was not demonstrably unfit. The judges noted that the community sentence was substantially longer than the custodial term Gorin otherwise considered appropriate.

The appeal is listed as file A-1-AP-2025-000004 in the N.W.T. Court of Appeal’s official pending-case records. Complete appellate reasons were not publicly indexed at the time of publication.

A publication ban protects the victim’s identity.

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