Lethbridge Courthouse. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Man sentenced to time served + probation for sexually touching his children

Jul 6, 2021 | 10:50 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC SEXUAL DETAILS

A man from Lethbridge has been sentenced after a series of incidents in 2018 and 2019 where he had sexually touched his own biological children.

To protect the identities of the victims, their names as well as the name of the guilty party are protected under a publication ban.

Sentencing for the 48-year-old took place in Lethbridge Court of Queen’s Bench on Monday.

His children, one boy and one girl, are aged eight and 12.

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In June 2019, the boy told his teacher that there were several occasions in which his father had touched his exposed penis and that the father had put his mouth on the child’s penis.

The boy had been made to touch his father’s penis and had seen the man ejaculate.

Both children were interviewed by a member of the Lethbridge Police Service. The daughter told the officer that she had been shown her father’s penis that her father had touched the outside of her clothes in the vagina area on more than one occasion.

In the cases of both children, these matters occurred while they were at the father’s house in the bathroom or bedroom.

Back in February 2021, the man plead guilty to two counts of sexual interference, defined under the Criminal Code of Canada as, “Every person who, for a sexual purpose, touches, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, any part of the body of a person under the age of 16 years.”

He has been in custody since then and was given credit for 201 days of time already served.

The man was sentenced to 201 days in custody, effectively meaning that he will now be released from jail, as well as two years of probation.

His probation includes several terms including the completion of a forensic psychological assessment, abstaining from alcohol and drugs, having no contact with the victims unless he is accompanied by a court-approved supervisor, not being alone with any persons under the age of 14, being placed on the National Sex Offender Registry, submitting a DNA sample, and having a lifetime firearms prohibition.

The judge acknowledged that this is certainly a smaller sentence than many in the community would like to see but it is still within the acceptable range. Mitigating factors such as the early guilty plea preventing the children from having to testify in court were taken into consideration.

Lawyers for the man and the crown presented a joint submission to the court that took into account his several cognitive impairments including a severe learning disability and ADHD.

The purpose of the forensic psychological assessment is to gain a better understanding of what forms of treatment would be the most beneficial and whether any of the man’s disabilities are genetic.

The judge, however, mentioned that it is “extremely frustrating” that there have been several delays in getting the assessment underway. Sentencing had already been delayed for around five months because the department that would be conducting the assessment is backed up. It will likely be several months still before that assessment could even begin.