The Province
Ex-Mountie pleads guilty to trying to lure child under 18 on Internet
One day in jail is not long enough for a former Langley Mountie who tried to lure young girls using the Internet, says a Fraser Valley justice advocate and grandmother.
"What kind of deterrence is a one-day jail term for anybody?" seethed Gertie Pool, head of the Furious Grandmas victims' rights group.
Adam Jonathan Clarke, 24, pleaded guilty in Surrey Provincial Court to two counts of communicating to lure a child under the age of 18. He was sentenced to one day in jail, plus three years' probation.
Clarke was arrested in 2005 after a complaint was filed by someone in the Langley detachment alleging the rookie constable was using the Aldergrove community policing office computer to access Nexopia, a chat forum popular with young people.
According to court documents, Clarke believed he was communicating with someone under the age of 18 when he contacted "M.F." on May 27, 2005, seeking to obtain child porn. M.F. was later determined to be a 12-year-old girl from Langley.
Clarke did the same thing the following day with another girl identified as "T.L." She was later found to be a 15-year-old Richmond teen
Clarke, who had been with the Langley detachment for less than two years, was arrested on the job and suspended without pay. He eventually resigned, returning to his home province of Newfoundland to await trial in June, before deciding to plead guilty last week.
Pool and other members of the Furious Grandmas are planning a trip to Ottawa this fall to take their concerns about lenient sentencing to federal politicians.
"It is high time the system is overhauled so that [judges] can be held accountable for their rulings by a governing body," she said.
