News / Of 37 arrests, only two were charged with possessing child porn -- the others are gay men who like sex

story by Joseph Couture / Xtra! Sep 30 1994

London's infamous child pornography ring has received a lot of sensational media attention, but no informed scrutiny.

Despite the widespread perception that Police chief Julian Fantino has exposed a massive kiddie porn ring with 37 perpetrators arrested, no pornography ring exists - nor has it ever existed.

Only the first two men arrested were ever charged with anything related to child pornography. Gary Gramlick pleaded guilty to one count of making child pornography and one count of possession; Thomas Jewell pleaded guilty to one count of possession.

Their combined child porn charges total three out of the hundreds of charges laid by Operation Scoop.

The pornography element was further exaggerated when London police announced "a major development" in the seizure of 875 videos from high school teacher Buryl Wilson. But in reality, not a single child pornography charge was ever laid as a result of the seizure. According to Wilson, one of the films seized was Dolly Parton's hit movie, 9 to 5.

On the same as Wilson's bust, police chief Fantino was crying on the shoulder of a Toronto Star reporter, saying he needed a task force to deal with his terrible kiddie porn ring. He got it. The newly created, taxpayer funded Project Guardian is a joint operation between the London, Ontario and Toronto police forces.

The day after that, Fantino cried on the shoulder of a London Free Press reporter, bemoaning the city's horrible new reputation. "Everywhere I go, I hear London's got this terrible child pornography problem."

No doubt the Free Press was laughing all the way to the bank. The terms child pornography, kiddie-porn ring and pornography ring appeared in headlines 55 times from last November to July. They sold tonnes of newspapers. And the headlines lead people to believe that all the "victims" were little children.

Court records show that the bulk of the youths involved are teen-aged hustlers. And no one has made the obvious and important distinction that men who have sex with children are paedophiles -- and men who have sex with teens are not.

Teens 14 and over may have oral or vaginal intercourse; but an person must be 18 to legally have anal sex. (That double standard has been found unconstitutional by the Ontario Court judge - but that hasn't stopped London police from charging adults, with officials saying that it is enforceable because it's under appeal.)

Anal intercourse with more than two people is forbidden, and paying for the sexual services of a person under 18 is also a crime.

One teen, whose identity if concealed by court order, watched as his 27-year-old lover of three years was charged for having anal intercourse with him when he was 17.

The teen says he just wants the police to stay out of his life. "I figure, I made my own decision," he says. "Nobody forced me to do anything. I had a chance to say no.

"They're just not putting that part in the paper. They're just putting, `These guys are bad, they did that."

The judge called the 27-year-old a "homosexual paedophile" and banned the couple from seeing each other for two years.

The fixation with anal intercourse also led to the arrests of two 27-year-olds, Albert Mallory and James Wright. They were founds guilty of having anal intercourse when more than two people were present. The third participant was 42.

London's gay and lesbian group finally reacted. Homophile association of London, Ontario (HALO) president Richard Hudler founded a court watch programme to monitor cases. "We want people to understand that this is a crisis for the gay community," Hudler says. "This is not about children or paedophilia. The target is gay male sex.

"The police are fighting tooth and nail to get back into the bedrooms of the nation. And they're trying to portray it all as child pornography to get public support and to keep us from getting support."

Hudler says that every time a new charge is laid involving paying for the services of someone under 18, the public gets the impression that another child is involved.

Twenty of the 37 men arrested have been charged with that. All the youths involved are 14 or over, the legal age of consent. Theoretically, then, the sex itself is not the crime; the payment is. But assistant Crown attorney David Arntfeild, who has prosecuted many of the cases, told a judge that "it is widely held that homosexual interference leads to the corruption of the boys."

Says Hudler: "This is to say the horrible consequences of these acts is that the young men will be homosexual."

A young man whose identity is also banned from publication, now 20 years old, says he knows of several men who have been charged for paying for his sexual services when he was under 18. "The police have sort of made a big issue out of, really, nothing," he says. "They [the police] know that we're not all victims. I don't feel like a victim. I think this is just happening because we're gay."

The teen whose lover was charged with having anal sex with him says his clients have also been arrested. "I can see adults that would rape a kid, or something, that's wrong. But I'm saying, if they are both willing... the kid knows what he's doing, obviously, or he wouldn't be there in the first place."

In an interview with the London Free Press, chief Fantino said: "You've heard me talk about my long term interest in pornography, especially child pornography. This is not an isolated case. The more you look at it, the more pervasive it is, the more shocking it is. It's mushrooming. It's growing."