Okanagan man guilty of sex crimes involving child with developmental delays

Photo: Colin Dacre

Warning: This story involves descriptions of child sex assault. Reader discretion is advised.

An Okanagan man has been found guilty of sexually abusing a foster child with developmental delays.

Regis Patrick Palmer, 66, was found guilty last month of sex assault and counts of possessing and making child pornography, according to a decision published this week. He will be sentenced on June 5.

The sexual assaults occurred over the span of 2009 and 2015 and with “regularity” while the boy victim, who Castanet will refer to as B.D., was between the ages of 12 or 13 and 19. Palmer was in his mid and late 50s at the time.

While B.D. was in foster care, he made frequent overnight and weekend visits to his biological father’s home. Palmer and B.D.’s father were close friends and Palmer spent a great deal of time at the father's home, which is where he abused B.D.

The victim lived in various foster homes throughout his childhood and no foster parents were involved in the sexual abuse.

Justice Sheri Ann Donegan ruled the Crown had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Palmer’s sexual abuse of B.D. ranged from inappropriate touching right up to anal-penile penetration.

The abuse was not revealed until August 2016, when B.D. was 20 years old, and he revealed it to a caregiver who called the police.

The Kelowna RCMP’s child abuse unit took control of the investigation, and after years of interviews, obtained a warrant to search Palmer’s home in Oliver in 2018.

The search turned up nine photos of a young male’s genitals on a memory card, which B.D. would later identify as his own when viewing a “sanitized” version of the images. The photos were taken when B.D. was 14.

Palmer at trial denied taking the photos but admitted to taking numerous other non-pornographic photos on the card that were shown to him, including some taken on the same day. There was also video evidence on the memory card that included a brief sexualized conversation between Palmer and B.D.

At trial, Palmer provided an “unshaken” denial, which Justice Donegan noted did not line up with the evidence gathered by police.

“His blanket denials of all of the allegations, when considered in light of the totality of the evidence, is simply incapable of belief,” she ruled.

Justice Donegan described Palmer’s testimony as “argumentative” and “non-responsive” in an attempt to “either paint himself in a good light or portray B.D. somehow as a child who engaged in inappropriate sexualized behaviour.”

“At times he was careless with the truth, but at other times it was clear that he was making it up as he went along. I do not believe his denials of guilt, nor do I believe any of his shifting or, frankly, impossible explanations for the numerous pieces of incriminating evidence,” Justice Donegan ruled.

B.D.’s testimony, on the other hand, was described by Donegan as “extremely detailed, earnest, matter of fact, and compelling.”

Donegan ruled that the evidence “clearly proves” that Palmer continually groomed B.D. over the years.

“Mr. Palmer ignored B.D.'s verbal and physical protests and effectively taught B.D. that his saying 'no', or using actions that demonstrated saying 'no' was pointless.”