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The father of one of the young men who pleaded guilty in the Rehtaeh Parsons case was arrested and questioned regarding online comments allegedly made about the case.
Military police questioned the Canadian Armed Forces member in Halifax in relation to the unauthorized use of a government computer.
Maj. Yves Desbiens, a department spokesman, said no charges have been laid, so he could not release the soldier’s name.
“Only an arrest has been made, therefore under the privacy act I need to protect the identity of the arrested man,” Desbiens said.
The arrest was made after an investigation, which began last October, into allegations of inappropriate online comments made from a DND computer.
Glen Canning, Parsons’ father, said investigators looked into inappropriate comments made on his daughter’s Wikipedia page and on his website.
On Wednesday, “the military police called me and told me they had made an arrest related to my complaint and the Wikipedia edits,” Canning told the Star in an email, adding the arrested person had been involved in his daughter’s case.
Parsons committed suicide in 2013 when she was just 17 years old, after her parents say she was sexually assaulted and cyberbullied. Two boys were later charged with distributing child pornography
Wikipedia’s revision history shows that a quote by Canning was revised to make it seem as if he said the sex was consensual.
“The two boys involved in taking and posing for the photograph stated Rehtaeh was throwing up when they had sex with her. That is not called consensual sex. That is called rape,” Canning is quoted as saying.
But on Jan. 29, the quote was revised:
“The two boys involved in taking and posing for the photograph stated Rehtaeh was throwing up after they had sex with her. That is called consensual sex.”
Agencies/Canadajournal
