A 25-year-old Regina man will be spending the next few weekends behind bars after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography.

While the number and nature of the images in Prisco Doculan’s possession weren’t nearly as significant as in many other cases the court sees, any amount of child pornography is too much, Regina Provincial Court Judge Jeff Kalmakoff said in pronouncing sentence.

“It contributes to the markets for those types of images,” he said. “It contributes to the exploitation of children. It contributes to the abuse of children.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Doculan had said on his own behalf shortly before. “I regret what I did. I’m not going to do that again.”

Crown prosecutor Adam Breker said the investigation that led to Doculan’s arrest actually began in the United States with the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). In October, that agency learned two private Facebook accounts had uploaded images of suspected child pornography.

Facebook shut down the accounts which the NCMEC discovered were linked to a Canadian IP address. Authorities north of the border were subsequently contacted.

The Saskatchewan Internet Child Exploitation unit began investigating the matter once the IP address was linked to a location in Regina and the unit executed a search warrant on Feb. 7 at the residence in question. While the residence and the IP address were in another person’s name, police eventually learned it was that person’s roommate — Doculan — who was responsible.

While a significant number of pornographic images were found, only eight of those were considered child pornography — something Breker referred to as a “very small collection in comparison to some other files we see.”

While Doculan initially denied to police having any child pornography in his possession, defence lawyer Cloudesley Rook-Hobbs said that was likely a simple communications issue, his client having arrived in Canada only recently from the Philippines. He noted his client, who has no previous criminal record, cooperated fully with the police investigation after that initial hurdle.

Crown and defence lawyers jointly proposed a 30-day jail sentence that allows Doculan to serve it intermittently on weekends — a sentence Kalmakoff agreed to impose. The jail term will be followed by one year probation with conditions restricting Doculan’s access to children and the Internet, save in specified circumstances. He is subject to searches by police up to three times per month and must forfeit items seized in the search.

He was also ordered to provide a DNA sample and abide by terms of the National Sex Offender Registry for 10 years.