12-month jail sentence for Courtice man busted in child exploitation investigation led by Peterborough officers

By Todd Vandonk – The Peterborough Examiner, Mon., Sept. 27, 2021

A Courtice man has been jailed in connection to a child sexual exploitation investigation led by Peterborough County OPP and the Peterborough Police Service in 2019.

During the investigation, named Project Peacehaven, investigators accessed online chat rooms and social media applications designed for youth in order to proactively identify, locate and arrested people allegedly looking to sexually exploit children in Peterborough, police said at the time.

During the three-day investigation, police say investigators communicated with 36 suspects beyond simple introductions. The communications established ages, which police say were well outside the consensual parameters established by the Criminal Code, and included inappropriate sexual content. Police say six people were arrested when they arrived at a set location to meet a child for sexual purposes.

On Wednesday, Sept. 22, Courtice native Joshua Burgoyne was sentenced to 12 months in jail by Justice Stuart Konyer. Burgoyne was originally charged with four counts of luring a person under the age of 16, but at an earlier court date he pleaded guilty to one count of communicating with a person under the age of 16 for the purpose of sexual touching.

During his sentencing decision, Konyer said Burgoyne started a conversation with two undercover police officers in an online teen chatroom in 2019. The decoys identified themselves to be 13 and 14 years old while Burgoyne was 40 at the time. Further, Konyer said Burgoyne quickly turned the conversations sexual, and after two weeks he made an arrangement to meet for sexual purposes with who he thought was a teen. Burgoyne was met by officers and arrested for luring a child.

Konyer said sexual offences against children are often “devastating,” and strong sentences need to be handed down to protect children from “online predators,” like Burgoyne.

Before being sentenced, Burgoyne said he was sorry for what he did, and it was a one time thing.

However, Konyer said he was troubled by Burgoyne’s lack of insight because Burgoyne reported in the pre-sentence report that he had no sexual interest in children. Konyer said the chat history suggests otherwise, noting Burgoyne thought he was talking to young teens and was grooming them for weeks so he could meet them for sexual purposes. Konyer also noted that Burgoyne understood his actions were illegal, and mentioned in the chats that he was concerned about being caught.

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