March 15

Events

1867 - What's it all about, Alfie? - Lord Alfred Douglas was 21 years old when he met Oscar Wilde. As a result, some have doubted that Wilde was truly a pedo (although there is evidence of relationships with boys in his life, but I digress...). But when he was younger and before he met Wilde, Douglas had a previous lover. That man was Lionel Johnson, an influential literary critic in his time. Johnson was born in Broadstairs, England on this date.

1996 - He shoots, he scores!!! - John Roby was an usher at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. He used promises of hockey tickets, sports memorabilia, and Toronto Maple Leafs souvenirs to convince young boys into having sex with him. Roby was convicted on 35 counts of sexually abuse. On this day he denied that he touched any of the boys who accuse him of abusing them. He went further, claiming that he had never had sex in his life. The story came to light when Martin Kruze said he had been abused as a boy by Gordon Stuckless an equipment manager and one of three employees at the arena who was eventually accused of sexually abusing 90 children there over a 30-year period. The third man, George Hannah, died in 1984. In October, 1997, Stuckless was convicted of molesting 24 boys and sentenced to two years in jail, a sentence later increased to 5 years on appeal. A few days later, Kruze committed suicide. Roby was declared a "dangerous offender," which in Canadian legal parlance meant he would never get out of prison. Stuckless was released from prison in February, 2001. Roby died in jail in November of 2001.

1998 - Keep your chair back, not your penis, in the upright position - ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) and Air France jointly launched an in-flight video campaign against child sex tourism on this date. The video, shown as the plane prepares for take-off and produced in both French and English, informed tourists who were travelling abroad that both in their own countries and destination countries there were strict laws to prosecute people who have sex with children. for some it served as a deterrent against sex tourism. For others, it was classified in their minds as foreplay. And for a few, it gave them ideas they had not, to that point, yet considered.

2001 - Everything but the kitchen sink in this bill - Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Criminal Code of Canada and to amend other Acts, was introduced for first reading in the House of Commons on this date. The bill was designed to strengthen the protection of children online by combating cyber crime and created a new offence that targeted the luring and exploitation of children for sexual purposes via the Internet. It made it a crime to transmit, make available, export or access child pornography on the Internet; allowed judges to order the deletion of child pornography on the Internet and to seize materials or equipment used; enabled judges to keep known sex offenders away from children through prohibition orders and 1-year peace bonds for offenses relating to child pornography on the Internet; and amended the sex tourism law to make it easier to prosecute Canadians who have sex with children abroad.