An Ottawa-based animator has received 28 months in prison for possessing child pornography content. The 55-year-old Tom Wysom is an artist by profession, who is known for his contribution to various animated TV shows for children including My Little Pony.
At the time of his arrest, Wysom possessed more than 60,000 objectionable images of children and 1,625 videos. He pleaded guilty to all the charges pressed against him in December last year.
On his IMDB profile page, Wysom is credited for serving as an animator and character developer. Between 2012 and 2015, he created animations for 26 episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and 23 episodes of Littlest Pet Shop.
According to Justice Berg, Wysom deserved at least 2 years in prison so that he becomes an example for others like him. His arrest was the result of efforts by the Ottawa Police Service’s Internet Child Exploitation Unit (ICEU).
The unit examined a P2P network, which the department had reports about being involved in the exchange of child pornographic content. Wysom’s location and identity were traced by the Unit in no time through his IP address.
Investigators then obtained a search warrant for his residence in Old Ottawa South where they found 60,165 pictures (including duplicates) and 1,626 videos (some of which showed adults sexually exploiting children). Some of the images were quite disturbing as young girls were attacked after getting their hands and feet tied.
In the court, Wysom explained how he ended up being involved in such an abhorring crime as child abuse. According to Wysom, he was already addicted to adult pornography for a decade. He switched to child abuse because adult porn didn’t appeal to him anymore.
He believed that he had become desensitized towards adult porn and needed something else to stimulate him. Moreover, he used child abuse content to deal with clinical depression and other medical issues that he was facing.
After being examined by forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Gray, Wysome was diagnosed with a condition called Pedophilic Disorder. Dr. Gray reported that Wysome was having untreated stress issues and through child abuse, he aimed to treat it.
These explanations agitated Justice Berg, which is why the accused was sentenced to two years in prison so that he could pay for his crimes and also deter others from getting involved in such activities. Nonetheless, Dr. Gray opined that Wysom was at a low risk of sexually exploiting children and/or re-offending.
“The stressors in his life may have led him to throw caution to the wind, but the stressors did not create in Mr. Wysom an ability to take pleasure from those images. That ability pre-existed the stressors,” Berg said.
Before moving to Canada in 1992, Wysom worked in Wales as a postal clerk and later acquired Canada’s permanent residency in 1996. He studied fine art and commercial animation and even exhibited his works at Ottawa’s Cube Gallery.
