A man from Charlottetown has admitted to sexually touching a teenage boy he was romantically involved with and possessing numerous images depicting child sexual abuse on his personal electronic devices. Dylan Kurt Macdonald, 30, acknowledged his guilt in P.E.I. Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon following his arrest earlier this year.
Details of Macdonald’s offenses were disclosed in court for the first time, with CBC News opting to withhold specific information such as the timing and location of the crimes to safeguard the victim’s identity.
Macdonald came under police scrutiny about a year ago when he attempted to upload child sexual abuse images onto an online Adobe photo editing platform. The P.E.I. RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation unit was alerted to these suspicious files, prompting them to obtain warrants to search Macdonald’s residence in February. During the search, law enforcement confiscated various devices including his phone, tablet, laptop, and hard drives.
Upon inspecting Macdonald’s devices, authorities discovered “hundreds of images of adolescent males with exposed genitals,” along with a locked box containing physical photos, including a yearbook picture of a teenager from P.E.I. An officer contacted the male in the school photo, identified as the victim, who revealed that he and Macdonald had a relationship that began years earlier at a camp.
The court learned that the victim and Macdonald initiated a dating relationship when the victim was under the legal age of consent in Canada. Despite this, Macdonald failed to verify the victim’s age before engaging in sexual activities. The relationship continued consensually after the victim turned 16 but has since ended.
Following his arrest, Macdonald was released under specific conditions, including refraining from contacting the victim or any individuals under 16 years old and abstaining from using devices with internet capabilities. However, Macdonald violated these conditions by communicating with the victim and being found with a minor in his presence during an arrest.
Macdonald has already served a 110-day sentence and has been in custody since June. He was granted temporary leave to visit a terminally ill family member but is expected to return to jail as agreed. His sentencing is scheduled for early 2026, with both the prosecution and defense requesting an assessment of Macdonald for sexual deviancy in the interim.