NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. — A British Columbia man imprisoned in Thailand for sexually assaulting young boys has pleaded guilty in Canada to five sex tourism and pornography charges involving children.
Forty-year-old Christopher Neil admitted in B.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday to five of 10 charges pending since March 2013.
The province's Criminal Justice Branch says the guilty pleas pertain to two charges of sexual interference in Cambodia in 2003, one charge of possessing child pornography in Maple Ridge in 2007 and two charges of accessing child pornography in Vancouver in 2013.
Branch spokesman Neil MacKenzie says the Crown does not plan to proceed on the remaining charges.
The former English teacher, dubbed Swirl Face, gained worldwide notoriety after Interpol released an image of his online photo obscured by a digital swirl.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin in late February.
