Crown wants nine years in prison for Kamloops-area man who repeatedly raped step-granddaughter

Photo: Castanet Staff

A Kamloops-area man who repeatedly raped an exceptionally vulnerable young girl he was supposed to be raising, a case described in court as “incest-like,” could spend nine years in a federal prison.

The attacker, a 65-year-old carpenter, cannot be named under a court-ordered ban on publication put in place to protect the identity of his victim.

He was convicted following a trial last summer in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops on one count each of sexual assault and sexual interference of a person under 16. He was back in court on Friday as lawyers made sentencing submissions.

The victim is the granddaughter of the rapist’s wife. Now 13, the girl was taken in at a young age by the couple after her mother was murdered.

At trial, the victim said she couldn’t remember when the sexual abuse began, but she said it happened more than three times each week, usually when her grandmother was out of the house or in bed. She said the attacker would enter her bedroom and sexually assault her, sometimes touching her and other times raping her.

During her testimony in August, the girl said she would be called a “worthless bitch” if she resisted or tried to stop the attacker’s advances.

Court heard the final incident took place on Jan. 6, 2019 — the day before the girl reported the incident to a social worker, who then called police.

“The victim was the poster child for vulnerability,” Crown prosecutor Frank Caputo said Friday.

“Her mother had been murdered, she was residing in a parent-like relationship with the accused. He was a grandfather of sorts. She went to reside with him at a very young age, I believe two-and-a-half. For all intents and purposes, [he] was her father — the father to a very vulnerable Indigenous child whose mother had been killed.”

During his sentencing submissions, Caputo described the attacker’s relationship with the girl as “incest-like” — incest but for the fact the attacker and victim are not blood relatives.

Caputo asked B.C. Supreme Court Justice Len Marchand to impose a federal prison sentence in the range of seven to nine years.

Defence lawyer Dan McNamee, meanwhile, suggested as short a sentence as possible — as little as a year behind bars, the mandatory minimum the attacker is facing.

“There’s recognition that jail will be imposed,” McNamee said.

“The submission from the defence is for restraint. Your Lordship should exercise as much restraint as you can in sentencing [the rapist]. [He] ignored the humanity of the victim in his actions, but this court should not ignore his humanity. This court should not say he is a monster and sentence him as such.”

McNamee pointed out parts of the girl’s testimony where she mentioned “normal” things she did with the attacker like play baseball, shop and go to the movies.

“It’s not all been terrible,” he said. “There were some positives to what he was doing.”

Court heard the attacker, who attended residential school in Kamloops as a child, has a dated criminal record with his last conviction having been entered in the 1980s.

"I'm very sorry to [her]," he said in court on Friday when asked by Marchand if he had anything to say.

Marchand reserved his decision. Sentencing will take place at some point during the week of March 22.

The rapist remains free on bail.