Child Luring Charges Laid Against Calgary Man

December 2, 2013

Calgary… Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) have laid 12 charges related to child luring against a 21-year-old Calgary man. The offender was arrested November 27th after arranging to meet what he believed was a 12-year-old child for sex.

ALERT’s Southern Alberta Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) team, with the assistance of Calgary Police Service and the RCMP, arrested Justin Robert Watson and charged him with six counts of luring, three counts of invitation to sexual touching, two counts of attempting to obtain sex from person under 18, and one charge of making explicit material available to a child.

The investigation began after a 12-year-old girl began receiving unsolicited sexually explicit text messages from Watson in September. It was revealed that one of the girl’s friends had also been receiving similar text messages from the accused.

ICE investigators engaged in further conversation with Watson. He then made numerous attempts to lure investigators into meeting him for sex. He was arrested November 27th under the pretense he was meeting a 12-year-old child for sex.

“We have to give the victim credit in this case credit for doing exactly the right thing and bringing it to our attention,” said S/Sgt. John Guigon of Southern Alberta’s ICE unit. “If a child is victimized tell a parent, tell a teacher, tell a friend, tell police, but just let someone know so we can help.”

ICE is an ALERT team established and funded by the Government of Alberta to bring together the province’s most sophisticated law enforcement resources to tackle serious and organized crime. Nearly 400 municipal police, RCMP and sheriffs work for ALERT.

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Media inquiries may be directed to:

S/Sgt. John Guigon
Southern Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) Unit
Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT)
403-428-4901

Mike Tucker
Communications Manager
Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT)
780-509-3015