A 56-year-old Vancouver man will serve two years probation and be placed on the sex offender registry for 20 years after having sex with a 15 year-old North Vancouver boy he found through the online networking app Grindr.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gregory Bowden handed Gordon Brent Tynan a suspended sentence after he pleaded guilty to sexual assault of the boy in 2010.
Tynan met the teen for sex three times between August 2009 and April 2010, after the two arranged a rendezvous using the iPhone application Grindr.
The free software allows gay and bisexual men to find and socialize with other men in their neighbourhood, based on GPS co-ordinates.
Users are supposed to be at least 17 to sign up for Grindr. But the teen lied about his age when he registered.
However, he told Tynan his real age before their last sexual encounter.
The hook-ups were discovered when the teen invited Tynan back to his North Vancouver home and the teen's mother walked in to find Tynan naked in a bathroom.
Both Crown counsel Mike Mahoney and Tynan's defence lawyer agreed the sex was consensual, but because the boy was only 15, he could not legally consent.
The government raised the age of consent to 16 from 14 in 2009.
When Tynan was arrested in April 2010, police issued a warning to parents to be aware of who their kids are talking to online.
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