CORNER BROOK, N.L. — The probation officer who undertook a recent pre-sentence report on Roderick Lorne Pawley deemed him to be at a low risk to reoffend and described him as a man who respects the law, but Pawley’s history of intimate-partner violence and new conviction for distributing nude images of a woman without her consent indicate otherwise, said the judge who sentenced him this month to jail time.
“I have to say that I found some of the remarks in the (report) difficult to accept,” Judge Harold Porter said in delivering his sentencing decision in provincial court in Corner Brook on Feb. 19, questioning the validity of the probation officer’s report.
The report also deemed Pawley to be a good candidate for community supervision, Porter noted, saying Pawley’s recent conviction for violating his bail conditions suggested otherwise.
Pawley had been released on bail to await trial on charges of assaulting a former partner when he sent two intimate images of the woman to a different ex-partner over the course of a two-day argument over text messages. The second woman subsequently made a report to police that Pawley wouldn’t stop trying to contact her, and turned her cellphone over to investigators.
RCMP officers later obtained a warrant to search Pawley’s phone, and found the intimate images. The woman in the photos had not given Pawley permission to share them.
Both women presented victim impact statements to the court; both of them spoke of being afraid of Pawley and described the psychological and emotional impacts of his crimes. One of the women told the court she felt nauseated and anxious and had sought treatment in the form of counselling and medication.
“She feels that he wants to have control over her and to manipulate her,” Porter said.
The other woman said she avoided leaving her home during the hours Pawley was around, afraid of running into him.
“(She) expressed a fear that the accused might distribute intimate pictures of her and that she is vulnerable as a result,” Porter said. “The commission of the offence had also left her feeling sad and mistrustful.”
The charges for which Pawley had been released on bail when he committed the current crimes later earned him three assault convictions (two of them against the first woman) and an eight-month period of house arrest. His criminal record also includes a 30-day house-arrest sentence for an assault in 2017.
“(She) expressed a fear that the accused might distribute intimate pictures of her and that she is vulnerable as a result. The commission of the offence had also left her feeling sad and mistrustful.” — Judge Harold Porter
“This means that the accused has been sentenced twice to sentences served in the community, one before the commission of these offences and one since,” Porter said, adding that the prior sentence “clearly had zero deterrent effect” on Pawley.
The judge also noted Pawley had not apologized for his actions, even after hearing the victim impact statements. Pawley’s guilty pleas didn’t hold much weight as a mitigating factor on sentencing, Porter said, given that he didn’t plead guilty for a year and a half after he was charged.
“Much of the delay was caused by the wait for the analysis of electronic media. That was, ultimately, unnecessary because the accused knew what images he had distributed,” the judge said.
Porter sentenced Pawley to five months in jail for distribution of intimate images and 30 more days for breaching his bail condition. With credit given for the time he spent on remand, Pawley had 159 more days to serve at the time of his sentencing.
Distribution of intimate images without consent of the subject is a crime that often earns an offender jail time — up to a maximum of five years — with judges in this province and beyond commenting on the seriousness of the offence and its lasting impacts on victims. In 2018 the provincial government initiated the Intimate Images Protection Act, making it easier for a person to sue someone who shares intimate images of them without permission, whether or not they were criminally convicted.
“I’d like these measures to be seen as a deterrent, for people to maybe think twice before they do this,” then-justice minister Andrew Parsons said at the time.
Tara Bradbury reports on justice and the courts in St. John’s.
