Sexual assault nets three years in prison

A Brandon man was sentenced to three years behind bars on Thursday for sexually assaulting a woman when he was 19 years old.

Jan Robin Dyck, 24, was convicted of one count of sexual assault after standing trial in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench.

Justice Scott Abel, in handing out the sentence, outlined the circumstances of the offence.

Dyck and a woman, who was also 19 years old at the time, agreed to hang out in October of 2020. He picked up the woman in his truck and parked outside of the baseball diamond in Alexander.

“The offender suggested they get in the back seat of the truck, where it was more comfortable,” Abel said. “The victim said she did not want anything sexual to happen. The victim agreed to cuddle with the offender but said, ‘No sex.’”

He said the offender started to kiss her, and the victim initially kissed him back before pushing him away. She tried to get out of the vehicle by opening the back door but couldn’t, so she tried to crawl over the centre console.

“The offender grabbed her legs and pulled her back. He then removed her pants and underwear,” he said. “The offender had his body weight on her and was holding her arms, one arm over her head and the other by her side.”

Abel said the victim said no, but the offender proceeded to have vaginal intercourse with her.

During the trial, the victim testified that after she told him no, she shut down.

Abel reserved his sentencing decision after Crown attorney Caroline Lacey argued for a sentence of four to five years, while defence lawyer Neil Steen argued for a sentence of two years served as a conditional sentence — house arrest — followed by probation.

Lacey read the victim’s impact statement during her sentencing submissions, which included point-form lists of words and phrases that represented the impact the sexual assault had on her.

“Broken, sad, disgusted, fear of the public, unable to be close to men, heavy drinking,” it read. “Dark spiral into addiction, unable to trust men, feeling dirty. I wanted to tear the skin from my bones. Severe depression and therapy.”

The victim ended her statement with, “All it took was one night. He ruined me. No means no.”

Lacey said the victim is “suffering from depression, abusing Xanax, meth, alcohol, missing work and has gotten herself in trouble with the criminal justice system from those psychological impacts.”

In Steen’s submissions, he pointed out that Dyck had no prior criminal record, was youthful at the time, is an active member of his church and is beloved by his community and family.

He also said Dyck expressed genuine remorse and that he worked on learning to understand the law of consent, since it wasn’t something that was talked about in his family.

Abel said the starting point for major sexual assaults, which is how he described this offence, is three years of custody.

“Sexual assault will be violent in and of itself, while the further physical application of force, the offender pulling the victim back into the back seat and holding them down, considering the nature of this offence, harm caused to the victim all require an adjustment up from a three-year starting point,” Abel said.

However, he said the mitigating circumstances, such as Dyck’s age, letters supporting his character and immigration consequences, which defence pointed out during his sentencing submissions, require a downward adjustment from the starting point.

After balancing the factors, Abel said a sentence of three years would be fit and appropriate.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com