A convicted internet predator who victimized two Alberta teens by trying to get them to perform sexual acts on camera has been given day parole after serving less than a year of his nine-year sentence.

Joshua Innes was 25 when he was sentenced last August after pleading guilty to two counts of child internet luring, two counts of extortion and one count of distributing child pornography. The charges stemmed from two cases, one involving a 14-year-old Airdrie, Alta., girl and the other, a 13-year-old Edmonton girl.

Innes, posing as a 16-year-old girl named Nikki from Calgary, convinced the Edmonton girl to perform sexual acts for him over a webcam. He then tried to blackmail the girl into creating more pornographic videos by threatening to post the original movie on a popular chat site.

Innes's attempts to carry out a similar scheme with the Airdrie girl backfired when she rejected his requests.

The National Parole Board ruled this week that it would release Innes on day parole in August and on full parole a year later, saying that, as a first-time offender, he was eligible for accelerated parole.

"[A panel] looked at the case and the documentation, interviewed the offender, looked at the treatment reports," said Carol Sparling, a public relations officer with the board's office in Kingston, Ont.

"They found that there was not reasonable grounds to believe that he would commit a violent offence."

In its decision, the board said the Montreal man was responding well to treatment and was on the path to recovery — despite the fact that Innes had previously been assessed as being at moderate to high risk of sexual reoffending.

This week's ruling followed an earlier one in June in which Innes was denied day parole on the grounds that that he was, in fact, likely to commit an offence involving violence before completing his sentence.

In that ruling, the parole board said it considered Innes' crimes to be "extremely serious and having possibly inflicted long-lasting trauma on the victims."

'The board is quite concerned'

"This type of offence is often prelude to actual in-person meetings and sexual contact. The board is quite concerned that this might have been the next step in your very well structured and planned scheme to groom vulnerable victims," the June 18 ruling read.

The Edmonton detective who tracked down Innes and eventually charged him said he is outraged by the board's recent decision. Randy Wickens said the ruling has basically let Innes free without punishment.

"There are a lot more things considered in sentencing than violence and to base a decision solely on whether violence was committed or will be committed or might be committed in the future is wrong," Wickens said Friday.

During their investigation, police found dozens of videos and images on Innes's computer of children as young as five performing oral sex. Police said they believed he may have targeted hundreds of other young victims before reaching the two Alberta girls.

At the time of Innes's sentencing — which was a year longer than the eight requested by Crown prosecutors — Alberta provincial court judge James Wheatley described the crimes as unprecedented and the equivalent of sexual assault.

"These predators have an easy 'in,' and are afforded a new and frightening gateway to children through the internet," Wheatley said in 2007.

"Children must be protected. This gateway must be shut down."

The conditions of Innes's parole include a ban on using the internet. He must seek counselling for internet addiction and emotional issues, as well as sex offender treatment.