By Bre McAdam

Saskatoon teacher on trial for luring former student

Jan 20, 2015 | 11:54 AM

A suspended Saskatoon elementary school teacher accused of luring a 16-year-old former student over Facebook is on trial, charged with luring a child.
 
Jayson Clark Kennard, 39, was arrested in August 2013 after allegedly engaging in sexual conversations with the boy, now 17, while the boy was in Grade 10. Kennard was the alleged victim’s Grade 6 teacher at Dundonald Elementary School in 2008.
 
The two didn’t get along at that time, the boy testified. He said Kennard sent him a Facebook message four years later, asking how school was going. The conversations gradually turned sexual when Kennard allegedly started commenting on the boy’s shirtless Facebook photos, asking him for nude photos and oral sex, the boy said. He told the court that he deleted those conversations because they were inappropriate.
 
On Aug. 23, 2013, his mother saw recent private messages from Kennard when her son left his Facebook account open on his laptop. In them, Kennard allegedly asked the boy to “stop by for a bowl” with him, telling him to text message him before coming over because he might be masturbating.
 
The boy’s mother said she became “physically ill” after reading the messages, but didn’t approach her son about them until the next day while the family was at the lake. She said her son was “very embarrassed” and seemed reluctant to talk about it. She told him the messages were inappropriate and that they needed to go to police.
 
The boy told the Crown that leading up to that point, Kennard would send him Facebook messages on a daily basis. When he allegedly called the boy “sexy” or “cute,” the boy said he would say “thank you” because he didn’t know how else to respond.
 
“It made me very uncomfortable, he was my elementary school teacher,” the boy testified.
 
He eventually told a close friend about what was happening, and said his friend advised him to tell Kennard to stop sending sexually-explicit messages. The boy told the court that he took his friend’s advice and that Kennard initially apologized. The conversations went back to normal before becoming graphic again, he said.
 
The boy’s friend took the stand, saying he remembered seeing messages from Kennard asking the boy to come over to his house numerous times and complimenting him on his shirtless photos. The boy seemed “weirded out” but did not do anything until his mom got involved, the friend said.
 
A police officer with the Saskatchewan Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit took over the boy’s Facebook account on Aug. 26 as part of the investigation. He posed as the boy when Kennard initiated a conversation late that night, asking the boy if he was “horny” and offering him oral sex.
 
“u wouldn’t tell anyone,” the police officer asked.
 
“of course no … but this would have to be complete secrecy dude. I’m deleting these messages as we go lol,” Kennard responded.
 
He bragged about his ability to perform oral sex and said he even gave oral sex to another former student. Kennard then asked the police officer posing as the boy to video chat, but the police officer said he couldn’t because his phone screen was broken.
 
Kennard also said his boyfriend would leave him if he found out about the messages, and told the boy to use a secret code if he wanted to engage in sexual conversation in the future.
 
The RCMP officer executed a search warrant for Kennard’s school-issued laptop the next day at Dundonald school. He was arrested and provided police with his password information.
 
The police officer saw that Kennard had messaged the boy from his classroom, just minutes before police arrived at the school.
 
“I’ll be at home til about 4 p.m. if you wanna stop by,” it read.
 
Kennard had deleted all of the sexual messages between him and the police officer posing as the boy, the officer testified.
 
When cross-examined by the defence, the boy initially said he did not receive any sexually-explicit Facebook messages from Kennard until the August 2013 conversations that his mom found. He later recanted, saying Kennard must have deleted those messages. Defence lawyer Brad Mitchell showed a series of messages exchanged between the boy and his former teacher, none of which were sexual in nature.
 
“It’s like you were talking to a cool older brother?” Mitchell asked, to which the boy replied “yes.”
 
He testified that he did not tell Kennard how old he was or what grade he was in, but said he may have mentioned what school he went to. However, none of that information was available on his Facebook profile, he told the defence.
 
Mitchell also asked the boy if he told Kennard that he turned 18 “in a couple of weeks,” but the boy did not recall saying that.
 
He admitted messaging Kennard about drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, partying and fighting, none of which he told police or his mother about. He also asked Kennard to buy him alcohol, to which the Crown pointed out made it obvious that the boy was underage.  
 
The trial continues at Saskatoon’s Court of Queen’s Bench on Tuesday.

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