SURREY — A Surrey provincial court judge has sentenced a child molester to a stiffer prison sentence than what the lawyers on both sides argued for.
The Crown and defence sought a two-year prison sentence and three years probation for the Utah man, who sexually abused a 12-year-old Surrey girl.
But Judge Robert Hamilton on Tuesday sentenced Kevin Douglas Knowlton, 33, a computer software engineer from Salt Lake City, to three and a half years in jail. With credit for time served, his sentence is actually three years, after which he'll be immediately deported back to the U.S.
There is a publication ban on naming, or publishing any information that would identify the girl.
Hamilton noted that the victim, once an honour roll student, now cuts herself with shards of glass. "She is in desperate need of counselling," he said.
The judge found Knowlton to be without remorse and possessed of little insight into his crimes.
"He certainly is not cutting himself with shards of glass like (the girl)," Hamilton said.
He said Knowlton needs time to reflect on his conduct.
"He must understand why it is wrong."
Knowlton met the girl through a computer game called High School Hero. He made five trips to Surrey, staying at a hotel on King George Boulevard where they had multiple sexual encounters.
The court heard Knowlton proposed to the girl.
He pleaded guilty to luring, sexual interference and making child pornography.
The court heard Knowlton's dad, who died when he was six, was a polygamist with 58 children. He is the youngest of 15 children by his dad's fifth wife, who'd married when she was 14 years old.
The court heard 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.
tzytaruk@thenownewspaper.com