Man, 32, pleads guilty to sex assaults on girls A MAN was released from jail Fri­day, just hours after pleading guilty in a Winnipeg courtroom to a string of crimes including down­loading child pornography and sexually assaulting two teenage girls.
Keith Robert Stuart, 32, is expected to immediately move to Brandon to re­sume living with a family member. He was sentenced to nine months of time served in custody, which was given two-for-one credit by provincial court Judge Theodore Lismer under a joint­recommendation from Crown and de­fence lawyers.
Stuart was also placed on three years of supervised probation with conditions including having no unsupervised con­tact with children under 16, abstaining from alcohol and attending sex-offender counselling. His name has been placed on the national sex-offender registry.
Defence lawyer Darren Sawchuk told court his client has struggled with drug and alcohol problems. He lost his job in the Alberta oilsands and become estranged from his partner and young child before moving to Manitoba.
Stuart's legal troubles began in April 2007 when a woman he was living with in St. Andrews went to RCMP after dis­covering child porn on their home com­puter.
Stuart admitted his guilt. The computer's hard drive revealed he'd visited several illicit websites.
"I was viewing it out of curiosity," Stuart told police.
Police released him on a promise to appear in court but re-arrested him weeks later in Selkirk after a 17-year­old girl filed a sexual assault complaint against him.
Stuart had gone to a house party, be­came intoxicated and then climbed into bed with the teen and fondled her, court was told. At the time, he was under court order to abstain from alcohol and not have contact with anyone under 18. Stuart spent several days in custody but was released a second time. His final arrest came last August in Bran­don, where Stuart had gone to live while subject to the same bail conditions. He went to another house party, got drunk and tried to molest a sleeping 16-year­old girl. He moved on to another room and fondled a second sleeping teen.
The victim's mother said she unaware of Stuart's pending criminal charges.
"You just feel so sick," she said, add­ing her daughter was devastated.
Sawchuk told court his client is ready for a fresh start after previously "put­ting himself in a position where it was inevitable" he was going to re-offend.
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