PERTH - Two tentative sentencing dates are being considered for Bridget Theobald.
Theobald, 32, had worked as an early childhood education at Sacred Heart of Jesus elementary school in Lanark village until 2011. She was charged with two counts of possessing child pornography, one count of making available child pornography, and one count of accessing child pornography, when she was arrested following an online undercover investigation in the fall of 2011.
She pled guilty last July to possessing child pornography and making available child pornography, but is still facing the charge of accessing child pornography.
The matter will next go before the Ontario Court of Justice in Perth on Monday, March 4, when they will decide on either Wednesday, June 5 or Thursday, July 4 for an anticipated one-day sentencing hearing.
The exact timing remains up in the air as the lawyers have to check on the availability of an expert witness for the defence, who may be called on to testify that day.
The matter was last before the court earlier this week on Monday, Feb. 11. Documents pertaining to the case were sent to Dr. Paul Fedoroff at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, and court heard that it may take between four and six weeks for him to process the information and weigh in with his expert opinion on the case.
According to the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research’s web site, Fedoroff, who sits on their board of directors, is the director of the sexual behaviors clinic of the integrated forensic program of the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Care Group. He has also been the Director of the Clarke Institute (now Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) Sexual Behaviors Clinic in the 1990s.
“He is an international expert in the area of problematic sexual behaviors, especially those with neurological disease or intellectual disability,” states his online biography. “(His) clinical and research teams work together closely with twin aims: to prevent physical and psychological sexual harm… and to investigate and champion ways to ensure the development of health sexuality.”