The defence noted while his client wouldn’t be going to jail the cumulative five-year sentence wasn’t too lenient to fall outside the appropriate punishment range
Sexually assaulting five young girls drawn to his convenience store by access to adult goods like vaping products has landed a Calgary man house arrest for two years.
Gurpartap Singh Walia was also ordered to serve an additional three years of probation after pleading guilty Monday to touching the adolescent victims for a sexual purpose.
Justice Greg Stirling accepted a joint submission from Crown prosecutor Stephanie Morton and defence counsel Cory Wilson which spared Walia, 56, having to spend any time behind bars.
Wilson noted while his client wouldn’t be going to jail the cumulative five-year sentence wasn’t too lenient to fall outside the appropriate punishment range.
“This is a significant CSO (conditional sentence order),” Wilson said.
He noted most conditional terms involve a third of the time under house arrest, another third on curfew and the remainder having no liberty restrictions, but the agreement he and Morton reached will keep Walia on house arrest for the full term.
Reading from a statement of agreed fact, Morton detailed how Walia and his son, Sumrit Walia, owned adjacent stores, one a convenience outlet and the other a liquor store, on Haddon Rd. S.W.
“In 2022 and 2023, several local teenagers learned that people under 18 years of age could attend at the convenience store and purchase products that can only lawfully be sold to adults,” she told Stirling.
“For example, they learned that they could purchase cigarettes, vaping devices … dab pens, referring to electronic vaporizer devices that contain and deliver marijuana, and alcohol,” Morton said.
“This led to a number of young people spending time in the convenience store and associating with the accused and his son.”
Sumrit Walia was earlier handed a 7½-year prison term on more serious charges.
Morton detailed incidents between the senior Walia and four young girls who were between 13 and 15 at the time in which he’d molest them.
In accepting the joint submission Stirling said he hoped Walia appreciated “the deep impact you’ve had on these children.”
“It’s created some long-lasting traumatic effects.”
The Calgary Court of Justice judge also heard several victim impact statements, including from one girl’s mother, who described the effect the crimes had on all the girls.
“You have murdered their self-confidence, their self-worth and their trust,” she said.
Among the conditions of both the conditional term and probation is Walia is to have no contact with any of the victims and he is prohibited from any unsupervised contact with anyone under 16.