A Saskatchewan man who exploited his wife’s home based daycare to commit sex crimes against children has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Joseph Sproull, 34, of Marshall, Saskatchewan, was convicted in February 2025 of possessing, creating, and distributing child pornography, as well as sexually assaulting two boys under the age of three.
Court records show police raided Sproull’s home in July 2021 after child pornography videos were uploaded online.
Police found hundreds of explicit images and videos on his phone, some showing sexual acts involving children.
The home doubled as a daycare run by Sproull’s wife, giving him access to victims his wife was trusted to protect.
"He's one of the worst offenders that we've seen and a big portion of that was because he did this in a daycare to kids that were in the care of the home," said Crown prosecutor Andrew Clements.
"We were all happy to see such a severe sentence."
The judge called Sproull’s actions “monstrous,” given the young age of the victims, the year-long span of abuse, and his role in the daycare.
Sproull had uploaded child pornography to the app Kik as early as August 2020, with evidence linking him to further uploads in March 2021.
While Sproull claimed he struggles with depression and had no prior criminal record, the judge stressed the severity of exploiting children.
“Among the most serious and objectionable of offences that fall within the areas of sexual assault on children and child pornography,” said the judge.
"At this level of sexual exploitation of children, it really is a matter of trying to determine whether one case of monstrous behaviour is even more monstrous than another."
The province suspended the daycare’s licence two days after the police search.
Sproull must now submit a DNA sample, join the national sex offender registry for life, and avoid contact with minors or places like playgrounds.
He is also banned from owning weapons for a decade.
Marshall, a village 240 km northwest of Saskatoon, has roughly 500 residents.