Sex assault trial adjourned again

By Delon Schurtz
Southern Alberta Newspapers

The case against a former elementary school teacher charged with multiple counts of sexual assault and other sex-related offences has been adjourned again.
Jamey Brian Kristian was expected to enter pleas last Thursday in Lethbridge provincial court, but the matter was adjourned to June 19 when a step may be taken, the Calgary Crown prosecutor said.
Defence lawyer Greg White said he and the Crown are working together on an agreed statement of facts, which will be related to the court when the accused eventually enters pleas to some of the charges. Many of the charges, White suggested, will be withdrawn.
At the time he was originally charged Kristian, 38, had been employed with Westwind School Division as a teacher at Raymond Elementary School. He was immediately relieved of his position pending the outcome of the legal process.
Kristian was arrested in January 2014 after police received a report that a man had sexually assaulted a nine-year-old boy. A police investigation determined the man sexually assaulted the boy the previous summer.
A second boy was identified as the investigation continued, and police reported a man first met the victim in 2005 when the boy was nine years old. Between June 2008 and July 2012, the man allegedly sexually assaulted the youth on multiple occasions.
After Kristian was arrested on numerous sexual assault charges involving the two boys, he was released on bail. But he was arrested again in June after police laid additional charges of possession of child pornography, voyeurism, sexual assault, sexual contact and accessing child pornography, relating to a third boy.