EDMONTON – More families have come forward after an Edmonton babysitter was charged with possessing, accessing and distributing child pornography.
The Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team’s (ALERT) Internet Child Exploitation unit arrested Jason Michael Campbell from his west Edmonton home Nov. 23.
The 36-year-old has been providing childcare services in Edmonton for the past 16 years and routinely posted ads for his babysitting on the online classifieds website Kijiji.
“We determined there were two families that were recently involved with Mr. Campbell in that respect,” said Staff Sgt. Paul Czerwonka. “We are working with the Zebra Child Protection Centre at this point to have the children interviewed to determine if there was any sexual contact.”
Czerwonka said the children of the two families were being interviewed as a precaution.
On Monday, ALERT said additional Edmonton families had come forward and “presented new information to ALERT” concerning the investigation. ALERT is asking any other families with information on Campbell to call the EPS Communications complaint line at (780) 423-4567. Officials want to hear from any families that used Campbell’s babysitting services.
They stressed, at this point in the investigation, there is still no evidence to suggest children in his care were sexually exploited.
The RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre warned ALERT Nov. 18 that Campbell was suspected of uploading child pornography to a website. The investigation was fast-tracked after officers learned the Campbell was a babysitter.
ALERT seized several devices from Campbell’s home and found several thousand images of child pornography.
“We are not blaming the parents in this respect. I’m just saying use common sense…with respect to what they see on Kijiji or any social media,” said Czerwonka. “As a parent, make sure you verify the background or credentials.”
Investigators are encouraging anyone with information about this investigation, or any child exploitation offence is encouraged to contact police or cybertip.ca.
“We don’t want anyone to panic,” added Czerwonka. “We’re hoping anyone with concerns will come forward.”
Campbell is being held in custody and is scheduled to appear in court Thursday.
WATCH: Jason Michael Campbell was arrested in his west Edmonton home Monday. As Shallima Maharaj reports, he faces a string of child exploitation charges.
Kijiji said Friday morning Campbell’s ads were removed from the site and he had been banned.
Kijiji released a statement on Thursday. Its head of Customer Support, Christian Jasserand, said:
“We are saddened to hear about this disturbing case. The safety and security of our users is paramount and we are committed to maintaining a safe and enjoyable community for our users. We commit significant resources toward the detection and prevention of activities that violate our policies – this includes industry-leading technology and a dedicated community support team.
We also harness the power of our community and ask that users let us know if they see an ad that they think is spam, offensive, mis-categorized or illegal. The “Report This Ad” link at the bottom of each ad enables the millions of Kijiji users that visit the site each month to identify ads that do not belong on the site.”
*EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on Nov. 26 and was updated on Nov. 30 with information that more families had come forward.
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