SURREY - The Crown is seeking a two-year prison sentence and three years probation for a Utah man who sexually abused a 12-year-old Surrey girl.
There is a publication ban on naming, or publishing any information that would identify the girl. The girl was not in court during the hearing.
Kevin Douglas Knowlton, 33, a computer software engineer from Salt Lake City, met her through a computer game called High School Hero. The court heard she told him her parents beat her, and he directed her to communicate with him in another chat room.
He came to Surrey, and they met. He made five trips, staying at a hotel on King George Boulevard.
She would sneak out of her house to stay with him there. Her parents caught her, she revealed what was going on, and they took her to the Surrey RCMP.
"The parents understandably became extremely distraught," said Crown prosecutor Winston Sayson, as he made his submissions Friday.
Knowlton was arrested at the hotel and has yet to be sentenced after pleading guilty to luring, sexual interference and making child pornography.
Knowlton had recorded the sexual abuse, thus the latter charge.
He was set to appear in Surrey provincial court Monday to confirm his sentencing hearing will continue on June 11, when his defence lawyer Isaac Ferbey will make his submissions.
The court heard Knowlton's dad is a polygamist with 58 children and he is the youngest of 15 children by his dad's fifth wife, who'd married when she was 14
Sayson read a victim impact statement the girl's mother prepared on her behalf, in which she said Knowlton ruined her daughter's life and virtue.
"This man has single-handedly destroyed my family," she wrote.
Sayson said Knowlton has a very high sex drive and deep-seated addiction to pornography for which he voluntarily had himself castrated a few months before meeting the girl.