Former youth justice worker convicted of sex crimes involving boys under 16

An Ottawa man has been convicted of sexually interfering with high school students, using other boys he met online to make child porn, and secretly recording other naked boys at a juvenile detention centre where he was tasked with helping turn their lives around.

Kevan Henshaw, now 33, pleaded guilty to nearly two dozen charges in Ontario Court in October, including sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching involving boys under 16, making child porn, possession of child porn and more. He had been charged earlier last year with more than 70 offences.

On Wednesday, a sentencing hearing was scheduled for May. 

During his plea hearing in the fall, Henshaw stood next to his defence lawyer Maggie McCann as the court clerk spent more than 15 minutes reading the charges. He sat quietly after being returned to the prisoner's box while then assistant Crown prosecutor Juliana Martel, now a judge, read out the facts.

The only other people in the courtroom gallery were two Ottawa police officers from the sexual assault and child abuse unit.

One of them cried silently for almost the entire hour-long hearing.

Concerned adult tipped Children's Aid Society

Martel told court it was a concerned relative, suspicious about why an educational assistant was spending so much time with their young family member and two other high school students outside of class, who eventually brought police to Henshaw's door.

That relative's tip to the Children's Aid Society was passed to police in late 2023, and by the end of the force's investigation, 837 videos and 266 images of child pornography had been found on Henshaw's iPhone and four USBs.

There were three sets of victims:

• The three boys he met at a high school and hung out with outside of school, doing dares and pranks that sometimes made the boys uncomfortable, Martel told court. Henshaw worked as a casual educational assistant with both the OCDSB and the English Catholic board.
• Hundreds of boys Henshaw met on social media, where he pretended to be a teen girl he had actually been friends with in high school. He would promise to send intimate images of the girl to the boys, and asked them to send sexually explicit videos of themselves performing various acts in exchange. Eleven of the victims were from Ottawa and 12 were from Nova Scotia, where Henshaw grew up and worked as a camp counsellor.
• Ten boys who were being held at the William E. Hay Juvenile Detention Centre, where Henshaw was a youth justice worker. Henshaw recorded them in secret in the strip search and shower area, where staff aren't supposed to have phones. He ordered the boys to get undressed and lift their arms and feet — moves typical of strip searches. Some videos show the boys's genitals before they go into the shower.

Investigators found the real woman Henshaw had been pretending to be online. Police still don't know how he was able to get intimate images of her.

Worked with children in variety of roles

In addition to working as a casual educational assistant for two of Ottawa's English school boards and doing youth justice work for the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa, Henshaw volunteered for a short time with Make-a-Wish Canada, and was a child and youth counsellor at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre.

At the detention centre where he surreptitiously filmed boys, he helped manage the cases of troubled kids as they wound through the justice system, helping them with life skills, meeting goals, de-escalating crises, and mental health.

About a year ago, Henshaw's business networking account on LinkedIn shared a post by a childhood trauma consultant, stressing the importance of two critical windows of development in young people: from age zero to three, and age nine to 14.

His account added the following to introduce the post:

"It's really important to remember that the brain is changing at every stage of life, but the two critical time frames cannot be understated. These are windows for positive or negative impact, completely dependant on the influences in the young person's life. Show up as a caring adult and be the change to see the change."

Martel told court Henshaw had a collection of other child pornography videos featuring boys from five to 17 years old.

They included voyeuristic videos shot in public change rooms and showers, one of which was GPS-tagged to a public swimming pool in Ottawa. Two of the videos depicted torture.

'Extremely serious, damaging ... degrading and disgusting'

At the end of his plea hearing in October, Justice Trevor Brown addressed Henshaw directly.

"I have made findings of guilt on extremely serious, damaging, and frankly, degrading and disgusting criminal offences," Brown told him.

"But I want to thank you for entering pleas of guilty. It's a very important step in the process, it demonstrates accountability, and very significantly, none of these many young victims have to come to court and testify."

At McCann's request, Brown ordered a psychiatric assessment focusing on Henshaw's sexual behaviours and trauma.

Henshaw remains in custody. McCann said she and her client have no comment.