Dartmouth peeping Tom awaits sentence for latest convictions

HALIFAX, N.S. — A convicted peeping Tom was out of breath and sweating when he emerged from bushes near his Dartmouth residence last Christmas Eve after police went to the Locks Road address to do a curfew check.

Kyle Gordon Dale Wright was carrying an iPad when he was confronted by two Halifax Regional Police officers shortly after 11:40 p.m.

Wright entered his house near Shubie Park with police and allowed them to look at the contents of the iPad. 

He was arrested after the officers discovered a photo and a video he had surreptitiously recorded of a woman from outside her bedroom window just a few minutes earlier.

Wright, 30, pleaded guilty in July to two charges from that case: voyeurism and breaching probation.

Last month, he also pleaded guilty to a charge of sexual assault from a Jan. 13, 2019, incident involving a female friend.

Wright, who has been in custody since his arrest last Christmas, appeared in Halifax provincial court Thursday for a sentencing hearing on all three charges.

Crown attorney Lauren Lindsay requested a sentence of 15 to 21 months in jail less time served, followed by three years’ probation.

Defence lawyer Leslie Hogg recommended a 15-month jail sentence plus two years’ probation.

After hearing submissions, the judge reserved her decision until Oct. 26.

In May 2021, Wright was sentenced to 230 days in jail, considered served by his time on remand, and three years’ probation after pleading guilty to 12 counts of voyeurism, one count of trespassing at night and two counts of breaching release conditions.

Eleven of the voyeurism charges involved three women who lived in the vicinity of Inverary Drive in Dartmouth, where Wright was living at the time. Wright admitted watching one of those women on 22 occasions between May 2019 and December 2020, another woman twice and the third victim once.

The other voyeurism charge involved a woman who was an acquaintance of Wright. He admitted secretly recording videos of them having sex.

Police seized electronic devices from Wright after he was arrested on voyeurism charges in December 2020.

On one of the devices, police found pictures of a naked woman who was lying face down on a couch and appeared to be passed out. 
In the photos, a male’s hand is shown touching the woman’s thighs and squeezing her breasts.

Police contacted the victim in the spring of 2021, and she recognized herself in the photos.

The woman recalled she and Wright had returned to their friends’ apartment that night after drinking at a bar in downtown Halifax. 

She remembered kissing Wright, but nothing more, and said she had not given him permission to touch her body like that.

She told police she considered Wright a close friend, and it was “extremely shocking” to learn what he had done to her. She said he was the last person she would ever expect to do something like this. 

“I thought he would be someone to protect me from somebody like that,” she said.

On Thursday, the prosecutor noted that there are suggestions in Wright’s presentence reports that some of his offending is a coping mechanism to deal with stress.

“I’m not sure what to make of that,” Lindsay said. “If your means of dealing with the stresses of life is to commit offences that violate the privacy and sexual integrity of the women who are around you or just live near you, the court needs to send a clear message that you have to find another way to cope with your problems.”

‘Huge risk factor’

She said the sentence cannot be crushing but needs to adequately reflect the seriousness of Wright’s actions and his high moral blameworthiness.

“He is a repeat voyeuristic offender and he’s proven with this sexual assault conviction that he has at least in the past taken advantage of an opportunity to go from looking to touching,” Lindsay said.

“That is obviously a huge risk factor. It’s just very, very concerning for the Crown and for the public.”

Hogg, the defence lawyer, said her client has poor social skills, suffers from anxiety and depression and has tried to take his own life on multiple occasions.

“He has felt quite worthless and has low self-esteem, a prominent feature in the African Nova Scotian community given the discrimination and racism that has occurred and has been perpetuated,” she said.

Wright is remorseful for his actions, Hogg said. “He’s doing everything he can at this point in time to try to make amends and redirect his life in a more positive direction and avoid coming before the court again.”

Wright said that if he could talk to the friend he assaulted, he would tell her he was sorry for breaching her trust. “It was unacceptable,” he told the court.

“In terms of the voyeurism charges, I understand the embarrassment that it’s caused people.”

In response, Driscoll said voyeurism is an invasion of privacy that creates fear in women. “This activity is not just bothersome or embarrassing,” the judge said.