Man guilty of sex offences against boy

A man who sexually abused a 10-year-old boy for months was found guilty of three sexual offences in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench on Monday.

Justice Elliot Leven found the man guilty of sexual interference, sexual assault and making sexually explicit material available to someone under 16 years old.

However, he stayed the sexual assault charge since it stemmed from the same offence as the sexual interference charge.

The Sun cannot name the accused due to a publication ban on information that could identify the victim or accused.

In a written decision, Leven laid out key moments from the trial, which took place on May 21 and 22.

The boy was 10 years old at the time of events, and 12 at the time of trial. He made a video statement for police, which was played during the trial.

The boy, his sister and his mother lived with the accused at his home for several months.

The family didn’t know the accused but were allegedly homeless at the time, and a “mutual acquaintance” arranged for them to move in for what was supposed to be a month, Leven wrote.

On the first night, the boy and sister shared a bed while the mother and accused each had their own rooms. The boy said his sister was restless and stole all the blankets, so every night after that he slept on a mattress in the accused’s bedroom.

“After the complainant went to bed, the accused would come to the complainant and perform various sexual acts,” Leven wrote. The acts included touching and rubbing of the genitalia and oral sex.

The acts didn’t stop until the complainant’s family moved out of the house. The boy didn’t tell family or police.

The boy said the room was dark at night, but he could make out the accused’s head, legs and fingers during the sexual assaults.

He said he felt “scared” and “terrified” and described the accused as “so gross.”

On one occasion, the accused showed the boy a video of women performing oral sex on men, Leven wrote.

Shortly after moving out of the home, the boy’s mother was killed in a car accident.

The boy’s former caregiver, who is an indirect relative and took the boy in after his mother died, testified she didn’t know the accused or have contact with him until the day after the mother’s death.

He sent her a message on Facebook, asking if he could see the boy and his sister. He said he wanted them to know he was there for them and also had some of their possessions, which he wanted to give back.

The caregiver said they didn’t want to see him and that she could pick the items up.

The accused persisted and said he “needed to see them,” but the caregiver told him to leave them alone.

Shortly after, the boy told his caregiver about the sexual assaults.

The accused testified during the trial that he only wanted to give the children his condolences and “felt it was very important to give condolences to a person’s face, so they know it’s sincere.”

He denied the sexual assaults.

“The accused flatly denied doing or trying to do anything of a sexual nature with the complainant,” Leven wrote.

The accused said the boy started sleeping in his room after four to six weeks when his sister had a friend sleep over.

The accused said he and the boy left on good terms, which left him “very confused” as to why he didn’t want to see him.

Defence counsel argued that the accused was credible and reliable, but that the complainant was less so and focused on specific points from the boy’s statement, including when the complainant said the sexual assaults would begin while he was asleep, and said “sometimes I would just like sleep past it,” Leven wrote.

He said the boy later added, “But then sometimes, it would be like a nightmare, dreaming that he touched me, but in reality, he’s actually touching me, and that’s why I would always wake up.”

When the Crown questioned the boy, he confirmed the sexual assaults were real.

The Crown argued that the boy was credible and reliable and there was no reasonable doubt about the accused’s guilt.

Leven said he didn’t believe the accused’s testimony, and it didn’t raise a reasonable doubt about his guilt.

He said one of the factors that made him not believe the accused was his comments about the Facebook messages.

While the first message was understandable, the judge said, after learning that the children didn’t want to see him, he should have dropped it.

“Knowing that their mother had just died the day before, any reasonable person would have honoured the children’s wishes. The body was not yet cold,” Leven wrote, adding that he found the boy credible.

He said the boy may have lacked eloquence, but he “expressed himself as we would expect a 10-year-old boy to express himself.”

“I find as a fact that the sexual activity described by the complainant occurred as described by the complainant,” Leven wrote.

A pre-sentence report has been ordered for Dec. 1 and the accused is set to return to court on Dec. 8.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com