Crown seeks prison term in sexual interference, luring case

A Crown prosecutor is asking for a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence for a Neepawa man who was found guilty of luring and sexually touching one of his underage co-workers.

“(The victim) should have been allowed to gain the valuable work experience,” Crown attorney Reid Girard said in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench on Friday. “Instead, it really opened her up to becoming a victim of … sexual assaults.”

The man, 45, was found guilty of child luring, sexual interference and sexual assault after standing trial in April.

The sexual assault was stayed under the Kienapple principle, which prevents a person from being punished for multiple offences that arise from the same transaction.

A publication ban on information that could identify the victim prevents the Sun from naming the offender.

In the summer of 2019, the man sent the victim — a 15-year-old girl — dozens of texts over Facebook Messenger about “hugs and cuddles and love,” Girard said.

The judge said the messages may not have met the standards of child luring on their own, but he found him guilty of the charge given the fact that they were meant to facilitate the underlying offence of sexual interference.

During hours of work at the Neepawa business, the man touched the victim’s back and thighs on several occasions, the court heard.

Multiple witnesses saw these acts that took place “essentially out in the open,” Girard said.

“The sexual offending was not limited to virtual offending. It was in person. It was physical,” he said.

The seriousness of the offending is “amplified” by several aggravating features, he said, specifically noting that the messages and touching occurred on multiple occasions and that the man was in a low-level position of trust.

While he wasn’t a part of her chain of command, he was older and in a higher, albeit unrelated, position than her, Girard said.

He asked the court to sentence the man to three years in custody for the charge of child luring and a consecutive three and a half years for the sexual interference.

Defence lawyer Anthony Dawson argued for a shorter sentence of between two years less one day and four years.

If the judge decided to sentence his client to less than two years, Dawson asked that he consider allowing him to serve it by way of a conditional sentence — house arrest.

He pointed out that the man has no prior criminal record and has followed the strict conditions of his undertaking to the letter, which he entered into after his arrest in February 2023. The man is not a Canadian citizen and because of these charges, may face immigration consequences, he said.

Dawson said the man expressed some remorse.

“There are a lot of things he wishes he could turn the clock back for, already having dealt with the stigma of these types of charges and the strict release conditions,” he said.

Dawson said sexual interference covers a large variety of behaviour, and while all is harmful, he described the man’s offences as being on the low end of the scale and expressed a similar view on the contents of the messages.

“The language used by (the man) throughout his messages with (the victim) is fairly innocent. It is nothing notably sexually explicit.”

The judge interjected and said that while the messages may not have been criminal on their own, he wouldn’t describe them as “innocent.”

Speaking to the court, the man said that over the last few years he has “pretty much suffered.”

“I’ve missed all my family functions. I missed my kid’s football games, basketball games. I missed my daughter’s … concerts. You can name it,” he said. “I do want to apologize for everything that’s happened to the (victim’s) family and to … other people involved.”

Justice Scott Abel reserved his decision and is scheduled to deliver the man’s sentence on Dec. 17.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com