Editor’s note: This story contains details that may be disturbing to readers
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This wasn’t what London police expected to find during a drug bust.
Found on a bed in the master bedroom during a search of Jeremy Goodenough’s house was a children’s doll, about 50-centimetres tall, naked and modified with a sex toy in the anatomically correct area – a homemade sex doll.
Goodenough, 49, was charged with possession of child pornography. At issue at Goodenough’s unusual trial last month was whether the modified doll met the legal definition of child pornography.
On Tuesday, Justice Jason Miller said it did and found Goodenough guilty.
“The only rational conclusion I can reach on this evidence is that the doll was constructed in this manner to simulate having sex with a child,” Miller said in his decision.
Miller rejected the defence argument that the doll met the private use exemption under the law and called Goodenough’s explanation “not believable.”
At the trial, Miller heard that London police went to Goodenough’s home on Nov. 1, 2023, with a warrant to search for drugs. They arrived shortly after 4 p.m., contained the area and called for people to leave the home. No one did.
Police didn’t enter the home until after 9 p.m. and found Goodenough hiding in a closet in the master bedroom. He was arrested and an officer testified at the trial to finding the unclothed, short-haired “child-like doll” on the bed with a sex toy inserted and taped into it with the legs in a troubling position.
At police headquarters, Goodenough admitted he put the sex toy in the doll but didn’t think it was child pornography.
During the trial, Goodenough went further. He testified the doll was brought to the house by his ex-girlfriend. He bought a “fleshlight” from an adult sex toy shop, describing it as a replica representation of the body parts of a porn star that he understood was older than 18.
But the item was cracked, he said, when he stepped on it while it was under a bed. It was now flimsy so he said he decided to use the doll as an aid “to sturdy it.”
He also told Miller during his testimony that the doll was “creepy-looking” and the face reminded him of his grandmother, so he would wrap the whole doll up in a blanket while using it. That left only the sexual parts exposed. He would use it while watching adult pornography.
He insisted he never left the doll out in the open until the day of the drug search and that it was found in the bedroom of his grandfather, who wasn’t living there. A spare bedroom didn’t even have a bed in it, Miller noted.
Goodenough denied that the doll appeared to be a child to him because it looked like his grandmother, and had breasts.
Miller disagreed and said the doll was child-like.
“The only rational, reasonable conclusion one can draw from looking at this doll is that it was intended to be a sex doll or a representation of a person, in this case a female, with which to simulate sexual intercourse,” he said.
He added that by modifying the doll with the sex toy “on what is otherwise an obvious child could only serve to reinforce the cognitive distortion that children have the adult ability and maturity to engage in sexual behaviour and fuel the fantasies of those who wish to have sex with children.”
Miller said Goodenough’s testimony made little sense. For starters, it wasn’t clear how the “fleshlight” was damaged by Goodenough stepping on it when it was under a bed.
And his explanation for putting the “fleshlight” inside the doll to stabilize the handle “defied credulity.”
It was “simply inconceivable” that Goodenough would choose to modify a doll he said was “creepy” and looked like his grandmother – “something he obviously did not find sexually pleasurable,” the judge said.
The placement of the sex toy in the doll was not coincidental, the judge said. “I find on all the evidence that it was an intentional choice to try to maximize sexual correctness. In my view, this is not a close call. The doll so obviously depicts a child.”
Miller extensively reviewed the law that allows for exemptions but said the circumstances in this case were “obviously creating a significant reasoned risk of harming children beyond just the concept of the doll in one’s mind.”
The judge added: “The mere fact someone makes a visual representation of child pornography for their private personal use” doesn’t mean it meets the exemption under the law.
A pre-sentence report was ordered. A date for Goodenough’s sentencing is expected to be set on April 14.