A three-judge panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal has rejected arguments that a former Aldergrove-area sex offender should have his most recent sentence reduced because of time spent in house arrest while on bail.
Kelly Glen Isbister was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison by Justice Murray Blok last September, after Isbister pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography, and one count of breaching a recognizance order.
The charges against Isbister went back to a raid in 2019, following an investigation that included the BC Integrated Child Exploitation Unit, the 黑马磁力 RCMP, and other agencies.
A tip from a social media company led them to Isbister, who was already a convicted sex offender who had previously served four years in prison starting in 2014 for victimizing three 14-year-old boys.
A longtime Aldergrove resident, Isbister was arrested again in 2020, while he was still under investigation, and more images of child sexual abuse material were found on his phone.
The appeal hinged on the long wait and strict bail conditions between Isbister's arrest in 2020 and his eventual sentencing last fall.
During that time, Isbister spent 246 days in pre-trial custody.
But after he was released on bail, he was under extremely strict conditions, defence lawyer Sarah Runyon told the Court of Appeal judges.
Runyon said that Isbister, who had been living in single-room occupancy hotels in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside before he was sent back to prison, was on electronic monitoring for three and a half years.
During that time, he spent a year under strict house arrest, unable to leave an apartment that reached up to 40 degrees Celsius in the summer.
During the next two and a half years, Isbister's conditions of release were gradually relaxed, but he remained under curfews, and he had no access to the internet at all during that time.
Runyon argued this caused a deterioration of Isbister's mental health that eventually sent him to a hospital emergency room with panic attacks.
This period should have been given more consideration when it came to sentencing, said Runyon.
In some ways, the time he spent on house arrest was harsher than what he would have experienced in custody, Runyon claimed.
King's Counsel Mary Ainslie argued that the judge took Isbister's long period on bail into account, reducing his total sentence by three months, in addition to the reduction for time already served in jail before the guilty plea.
She noted that the primary reason for releasing Isbister was to allow him to receive treatment for his sex offending, but there was ultimately no report to the court on the impact of the counselling he received.
"There were no reports or statements that show Mr. Isbister has been deterred," Ainslie said.
She also argued that Justice Blok understood Isbister's circumstances, as well as his past and recent history of offences, noting that if he had not been released on house arrest, "the alternative was custody."
After hearing from both lawyers, the three-judge panel retired for a few minutes before returning to announce they were dismissing the appeal.
Justice Janet Winteringham read the reasons, with the other two judges concurring.
"In the end, the judge deducted three months," Winteringham said, noting that there was "no mathematical formula" for reducing a sentence based on conditions of release on bail.
She said Blok's reasons for sentencing were "comprehensive."
With time served in pre-trial custody, Isbister's sentence remains at 14 months, plus a lifetime ban on being in parks, public pools, day cares, or schools, being in contact with anyone younger than 16 years old, or of using the internet except under conditions set by the courts.
