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HALIFAX — It was like a galling new version of the ancient American comic strip which ran in some Sunday newspapers in the 1900s, but whose punchline gag endures even now – the strip’s two awkward Frenchmen frozen in an excess of politesse.

“After you, Alphonse.”

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“No, you first, my dear Gaston.”

And this was how the notorious picture of Rehtaeh Parsons — naked from the waist down, hanging out a window after she’d thrown up, unaware that the half-naked boy behind her was looking over his shoulder to a camera and giving a merry thumbs up—came to be taken.

According to the boy, after Rehtaeh had collected herself somewhat and purportedly invited them to pick up where they’d left off, he and his friend did an Alphonse-and-Gaston as they bickered about who would go next with the then-15-year-old.

The boy was then just 16 himself. He pleaded guilty to one count of distributing child pornography last month and was Thursday sentenced to a year’s probation, with orders to get counselling and stay away from alcohol. The other boy earlier pleaded guilty to production of child pornography and was given a conditional discharge, with a year’s probation.