An Alberta Children’s Services employee who worked in High Level is facing charges related to possessing and accessing child pornography.
The Alberta Law Enforcement Teams‘ (ALERT) Internet Child Exploitation Unit (ICE) received a report in November 2017 by Athabasca Tribal Council that child pornography images had been found on a work computer.
The suspect was employed by Children’s Services in High Level at the time and had been previously employed by the Athabasca Tribal Council.
ALERT said thousands of images were located during its forensic investigation. Officials do not believe a physical offence against a child has been committed.
“At this point, we are only aware of possession and accessing of child pornography–no contact offences were revealed in any of the analysis that we did,” Cpl. Cameron Dunn said. “However, this is a good opportunity to request that the public contact police if there is anyone out there who may have further information.”
Dunn said this investigation was moved up the “forensic queue” due to the connection to Alberta Children’s Services.
Henry Victor Haineault, 60, was arrested in Leduc on April 11.
Officers said it’s normal to seize devices when a suspect is arrested. Dunn said in this case, investigators accessed and analyzed the devices in question before an arrest was made.
“We had a report from the public that child pornography was on these devices,” he said. “We had access to those devices because those devices belonged to Alberta Child Services and they provided them to us well in advance of police contact with Mr. Haineault.”
Haineault was on administrative suspension prior to his arrest.
The Fort McMurray resident is facing two counts each of possession and accessing child pornography.