Warning: this story deals with child sex abuse.
A northern Alberta child molester has been sentenced to nine years in prison after a judge rebuked the defence’s suggestion he serve his time in the community.
“MD” was in Grande Prairie Court of King’s Bench Oct. 9 to learn his punishment for sexually abusing his niece more than 50 times between 2004 and 2005, when she was 12-13 years old.
The accused — whose name is covered by a publication ban to protect the identity of the victim — was found guilty of sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching after a trial that hinged on secretly recorded audio of MD blaming the victim for “instigating” the abuse.
Justice Michael Lema was asked to decide between the Crown’s recommended sentence of 10 years in prison — the maximum for sexual interference at the time — or the defence’s proposed two-year conditional sentence order, to be served at home.
“The most sinister and damaging dimension here is the offender’s ongoing decision to satisfy his sexual needs by exploiting a child entrusted to his care, destroying the victim’s sense of protection, stability, and normality,” he said. “Where she should have experienced care and nurturing, she instead found abuse and abasement.”
He dismissed defence lawyer Obinna Ononuju’s sentencing arguments, saying the cases Ononuju submitted for comparison were mostly “obsolete” in the face of new Supreme Court case law directing longer sentences for people who abuse children.
“All of them involve vastly different circumstances,” Lema said of the cases Ononuju provided. “None of them illuminate any aspect of this sentencing decision, including the request for a conditional sentence order. Three of the decisions impose or affirm prison sentences.”
Lema also dismissed Ononuju’s suggestion that, since the victim might have had previous sexual contact with another person, MD was not guilty of grooming her.
“Assuming for the sake of discussion a victim with a prior sexual history, why would that history preclude the possibility of the victim being groomed for a sexual relationship with the offender?” Lema asked. “It does not and could not. The offender groomed the victim irrespective of any such history. His position minimizes his conduct and overlooks his responsibility to refrain from sexual activities with children.”
The victim and her brother were sent by their father to live on the Grande Prairie-area farm where MD worked in 2004. At some point, MD began showing the girl videos and images of child sex abuse. When she went to police years later, she said MD sexually abused her “between 70 and 80 times,” revising the estimate to “greater than 50 times” at trial. The siblings left MD’s farm in 2006.
The victim finally confronted MD about the abuse in 2021, recording the conversation on her phone without MD realizing.
MD responded angrily. “You swore and promised me before I ever did anything that you would never hold that against me.”
“What I remember is you instigated it,” he told her. “You started the affair.”
When the woman reminded him she was a child, he responded, “but you were very mature. You kept instigating it at that time, very forcefully.”
At trial, MD denied any sexual contact with the victim. He denied being the male voice in the recordings, suggesting the victim fabricated the conversation.
Lema disagreed and deemed the audio admissible evidence.
He ultimately convicted MD of both counts, describing his testimony as “evasive,” “defensive” and “often non-sensical.” The victim’s evidence, on the other hand, was “centrally consistent,” “highly candid,” “logical” and “not evidently exaggerated.”
The maximum sentence for sexual interference has risen to 14 years since MD’s crimes, though Crown prosecutor Amber Pickrell conceded he could only be subjected to the previous 10-year maximum.
Lema was largely unimpressed with MD’s sentencing arguments, noting he continued to deflect blame in a pre-sentence report, painting himself as “powerless over the sexual advances of a female child.”
“He is incorrect,” Lema said.
As for MD’s risk of reoffending, Lema concluded the chance is “non-minimal” given his “continuing lack of insight” into his crimes. Lema sentenced him to nine years for the sexual interference and four-and-a-half years for the sexual touching, to be served at the same time.
MD was jailed after his conviction in February. With the standard one-and-a-half-day credit for time in pretrial custody, he had served around 350 days of his prison term at the time of sentencing.