A 26-year-old man who worked on a part-time basis at two Toronto daycares is facing charges for allegedly possessing and making available child pornography.
Police arrested the suspect on Thursday following the execution of a search warrant in Scarborough.
According to Det. Sgt. Paul Krawczyk, the investigation into the suspect began in March after an undercover officer obtained child sex abuse images from someone online.
Krawczyk said that the suspect is currently employed at Family Day Care Services. Previous to that, Krawczyk said the suspect held a number of other jobs where he would have had access to children, including as a high school tutor and a taekwondo instructor.
“He has had a lot of extensive contact with children so that is of concern for us considering the charges he is facing,” he said. “We seized a lot of evidence this morning. We are not alleging that he has created any of this but we need time to go through the evidence and make sure he has not been producing his own.”
In a statement issued on Thursday afternoon, Family Day Care Services said that the suspect has been working as supply staff at two of their locations since November, 2016.
“It is very distressing to have found ourselves in this situation,” Family Day Care Services CEO Joan Arruda said. “I can assure you that our agency is taking this matter extremely seriously. We are following all of the necessary steps to alert the proper authorities, talk to parents and staff, and cooperate with the police in any way we can.”
Family Day Care Services says that the suspect no longer has access to any of their centres or programs.
Furthermore, the daycare provider says that they have alerted the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto and the Ontario Ministry of Education about the incident and will follow “all necessary protocols or policies.”
Ko-Lun "Kevin" Liu, of Toronto, is charged with accessing child pornography, making available child pornography and two counts of possession of child pornography.
