Brandon man gets three years for ‘major’ sexual assault

A Brandon man was sentenced to three years in prison on Monday for a violent sexual assault on his former partner.

“By any standards, this sexual assault was major. It was serious. It was reprehensible in every way and included physical violence,” Justice Elliot Leven said in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench.

The man, 24, pleaded guilty to a single count of sexual assault at a previous court appearance. A publication ban on information that could identify the victim prevents the Sun from naming the accused.

Crown attorney Yaso Mathu asked the court to consider a three-and-a-half-year penitentiary sentence and read the facts of the case.

The victim went to Brandon Police Service headquarters on Oct. 5, 2020 to report that she had been sexually assaulted by her ex-partner. The offender and the victim had been in a relationship for just under a year and broke up that September. They were both 18 when the sexual assault occurred.

She gave a statement to police, in which she explained she was living with her boyfriend at his grandmother’s house in Brandon and that the sexual assault occurred on a night in May or June between 1 and 2 a.m.

The man had been drinking alone and was heavily intoxicated when the victim, who was sober, came home.

“(He) pushed her against the storage room wall and held her by her biceps,” Mathu said.

When he let her go, the victim started to walk away, but he grabbed her again, pushed her against the wall and took off her clothes.

Mathu said the victim explained that she didn’t resist or say no because of threats he had made in the past.

He demanded she perform oral sex on him and said if she didn’t, he would make her.

“This continued for several minutes, until (he) seemed to get tired of this, and he grabbed her head and pushed her away from him onto her back. (He) then got onto the bed overtop of her,” she said.

He then had sexual intercourse with her, and if she moved, he would slap her in the face. The victim blacked out and remembered waking up naked in bed the next morning.

On Oct. 7, 2020, BPS arrested the offender at his grandmother’s house.

The victim came to court and read a victim impact statement where she said she wished she could go back and talk to her past self.

“I wish I could sit her down and tell her not to be scared. Tell her that she won’t be heartbroken forever. I want to cross time and space to reassure her she will heal. She won’t stay down. She will feel whole again,” she said.

Mathu said it’s a mitigating factor that the offender pleaded guilty, but that there were multiple aggravating factors, including that they were in an intimate relationship, that he’s assessed as a medium risk to reoffend, and the violence and threats during the sexual assault.

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison asked the court to consider a sentence of two and a half years and emphasized the remorse the victim showed.

“He’s a totally different person,” he said. “He said drunk or not, under any circumstances it’s unacceptable … He said, ‘I wish I could say how sorry I am.’”

Harrison said the offender was young at the time and struggled with alcohol use, unemployment and lack of motivation.

The offender was a victim of sexual assault himself, Harrison said, adding that it probably makes him feel worse knowing what it feels like and then doing it to someone else.

“He knows he has to pay a penalty for what he did, even though he feels he’s changed,” Harrison said.

After the lawyers finished their sentencing submissions, the offender apologized for his actions.

“I have to live with that every day,” he said. “I have done a lot of things in the past few years to make my life different, including getting sober.”

Leven said after considering the mitigating and aggravating factors, he decided on a sentence of three years in custody.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com