Toronto man faces new charges in Halifax child sexual abuse investigation
Owen Watson, a 24-year-old Toronto man attending university in Halifax, has been hit with four additional charges related to luring children and distributing explicit material. The case involves two terabytes of evidence and is scheduled to return to court on Nov. 19.
A 24-year-old Toronto man who was attending university in Halifax is facing four new charges in an ongoing child sexual abuse investigation.
Halifax police laid the additional charges against Owen Watson on Oct. 13: luring a child under 18, luring a child under 16, making sexually explicit material available to a child, and making child sexual abuse and exploitation material. Watson had previously been facing charges of accessing, possessing, and distributing child sexual abuse and exploitation material. Police allege the seven total offences were committed between October 2025 and April of this year.
The Halifax Regional Police-RCMP internet child exploitation unit received information in January that a man residing in Halifax was accessing child sexual abuse material online. Watson was arrested on April 14 after investigators executed a search warrant at his apartment on Tower Road in Halifax.
Watson was released on a $3,000 bail order subject to conditions restricting his internet use and contact with children. He was subsequently charged with two counts of breaching those bail conditions by failing to comply with internet use restrictions, alleged to have occurred on May 7 and May 8. His bail order was varied in June to allow him to reside at addresses in the Toronto area and Hillier, Ont.
Legal proceedings are delayed pending the processing of large volumes of digital evidence. Crown attorney Adam McCulley stated there are two terabytes of evidence that needs to be compressed before disclosure to the defence.
The case is scheduled to return to court on Nov. 19.