Judge reserves decision in incest case

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A judge will use the next two months to decide the fate of a Westman man who sexually abused his daughter for more than a decade.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Scott Abel reserved his decision Monday regarding a man who pleaded guilty to charges of voyeurism, sexual assault, sexual interference and incest that occurred between 2002 and 2019.

“The accused let things get to the point where he, in his own mind, came to view his own daughter as an intimate romantic partner,” Crown attorney Rich Lonstrup told the court during lawyers’ submissions Monday. “That is a deeply deviant and criminalized mindset.”

The Crown sought a 20-year prison sentence and a lifetime sex offender registry order, while the defence requested a sentence of 12 years behind bars.

The 48-year-old man can’t be named due to a publication ban intended to protect the identity of the victim.

The abuse began with the accused touching his young daughter daily when he bathed her. The sexual touching escalated to using his fingers to penetrate her vagina when she was five years old.

The accused began having sex with his daughter when she was 10 years old until she was 16.

The girl tried to resist her father on different occasions and told him to stop, but he would become angry, causing bruising when he forced her legs apart.

The abuse resumed when the victim was 19 and the accused would take pictures of his daughter sleeping topless.

He also stole intimate images of his daughter from her phone that had been part of conversations between her and her boyfriend at the time.

After the offender’s wife found these intimate images of their daughter on his tablet, police took statements from the victim. Initially, she denied any sexual abuse, but then in a second statement she disclosed the 12 years of sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father.

During sentencing submissions, the mother read her daughter’s victim impact statement to the court. Family members filled the back row of the courtroom. Some held hands, while others wiped tears from their eyes.

The statement detailed the mental and emotional trauma the victim, now a woman, faces and how the abuse has impacted her ability to enjoy life and have healthy relationships.

“I grieve the loss of someone who was supposed to be my dad, not my abuser,” she wrote in her statement.

Lonstrup emphasized the seriousness of abuse against a vulnerable person, particularly from someone in a position of trust. Parents are supposed to keep their children safe from harm, but the offender did the opposite, he said.

“He exploited his daughter to the utmost degree.”

The Crown attorney also described how the accused groomed his daughter with manipulation, threats, and violence to prevent her from telling others about the abuse.

The accused told his daughter that incest was an “ancestral habit” and that was normal and “helped build special bonds.”

“This is grooming of the highest order, openly justifying and normalizing,” the Crown attorney said.

In an interview for his pre-sentence report, the offender estimated that he had sex with his daughter 20 times. Throughout the interview, he couldn’t say why he committed the offences against his daughter.

Additionally, the author of the report noted concern with the accused’s view of his relationship with his daughter as good despite having sexually abused her for years.

“I have no idea how I crossed from seeing her as my daughter to someone I could have sex with. She was a daddy’s girl up until a couple of years ago,” the offender says in the report.

The offender also pleaded guilty to an assault on his now ex-wife. In 2016, when he learned that his daughter’s boyfriend was spending the weekend at his house, he lashed out at his wife, grabbed her by the neck, pushed her against the closet door and squeezed her throat hard enough to obstruct her breathing for a few seconds.

“He developed a possessive fixation over his daughter to the point where he would lash out angrily, physically against his wife … he’s getting jealous of his own daughter,” Lonstrup said.

In addition to seeking a 20-year prison sentence, the Crown asked that the accused be on the sex offender registry for life as well as a no-contact order with the woman and other named members of his family.

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison took no issue with the orders but asked the judge for a lower prison sentence. He called the 20-year term “crushing and repressive” for his client who has no prior criminal record and took responsibility for his actions by entering guilty pleas.

Harrison also said that punishment for his client will come in other ways, including stigma from society, the loss of his family, and retribution from other inmates who learn of his crimes while he’s behind bars.

“It’s not going to be an easy ride, not a safe ride, frankly, for him going forward,” Harrison said.

The accused used his opportunity to speak in court to apologize.

“I don’t have any excuses for my actions,” he told the court. “I am deeply sorry; I know that doesn’t go very far. I do hope someday that I can reconcile if that’s a possibility.”

The justice is expected to deliver his sentence on June 12.

» gmortfield@brandonsun.com