Victim’s mother calls the two days her daughter was missing in February 2021 a “nightmare.”
The mother of a 15-year-old girl abducted by her biological father in Montreal three years ago and kept in a crawl space while police searched for her described the ordeal as a nightmare in court on Tuesday.
While delivering a victim impact statement before Quebec Court Judge Nathalie Duchesneau at the Montreal courthouse, the mother said that years ago, her daughter was diagnosed as having autism and has the mental capacity of an eight-year-old.
Duchesneau began hearing sentencing arguments Tuesday after the 47-year-old father avoided trial by pleading guilty on Dec. 4 to taking a person under the age of 16 out of the possession of their parent and to another charge related to how he lied to the Montreal police while they searched for the girl over the course of two days in February 2021.
Prosecutor Jessica Drolet said the Crown will seek a 42-month prison term while defence lawyer Walter Stirling said he is seeking a sentence the father can serve in the community.
The man, whose name cannot be published due to a standard publication ban intended to protect the minor girl’s identity, had been divorced from the victim’s mother for years. The teen contacted him through social media after she became upset over having been placed in youth protection out of concerns for her safety. The mother has sole custody of the girl.
On Tuesday, the mother said she is certain her ex-husband took their daughter in as revenge for the wife’s having left him more than a dozen years ago.
“I got the call that no parent wants to receive: ‘Your child is missing,’” the mother told the judge.
She described the stress she suffered upon learning her daughter had gone missing and how the police investigation included a late-night search of the home where the teenager’s teacher lived. The teacher’s four young children were roused from their sleep while the search was carried out.
“The whole time (he) knew where (she) was,” the mother said. “My whole life as I knew it ended. Now that I have seen the photos and videos (of where the girl was temporarily kept to hide her from police) it was like a nightmare.”
On the day the girl was found and returned to her mother, the Montreal police executed three search warrants, including at the home of one of the father’s relatives. They found evidence the girl had been kept inside a two-foot-high crawl space accessible through a trap door in a closet of the apartment where she was kept.
The father and two other people were arrested weeks later, but criminal charges filed against the others were eventually dropped.
The mother also referred to statements posted on the TikTok account of CTV News after it reported on the story in May.
The mother alleged that one of the comments was posted by the father and that he wrote, with his name visible on the platform: “I am the father. It never happened this way. I’m suing everyone.” CTV’s story was partly based on a joint statement of facts entered into the court record when the father pleaded guilty in December. The mother alleged the comment violated the court order intended to protect her daughter’s identity.
The sentencing hearing will continue early in December.
This article will be updated.