Sentencing delayed for man who videotaped himself fondling a woman with her own phone

By Peggy Revell on January 24, 2018.

A Medicine Hat man pled guilty Tuesday to sexually assaulting a woman while videotaping it, but sentencing was delayed as the judge wanted Crown and defence to submit case law to back up a joint submission.

Clayton Rae Imeson entered guilty pleas to sexual assault and breaching a no-contact order for incidents that stem back to April and May 2017 when he was in a brief relationship with a woman whom he mainly communicated with through a dating app.

The Crown characterized the accused’s actions as “non-major sexual assault with aggravating features.”

According to facts stated in court, the woman was completely unconscious due to self-medication for a medical condition, and the accused took the victim’s breasts out from under her clothes and fondled them, while using her phone to video record his actions.

The length of this video was five to 10 minutes, the court heard, and there’s no sign of anything else happening to the victim. Nor are there any allegations the accused did anything with the video, such as distributing it — instead he just left them on the victim’s phone.

It’s also alleged that on May 20, the accused showed up at the victim’s invitation and allegedly told her it would be best if she didn’t testify against him. Charges of intimidation and threats were originally laid, but the accused pled down to breaching a no-contact order, as Crown said there were issues with the strength of this part of the case.

Part of the accused’s criminal record includes previous domestic assault charges.

Defence counsel and Crown put forward a joint submission for a 282-day jail sentence. Due to time spent already in custody before being granted bail, 192 days credit could be applied to the sentence. Defence counsel requested the remaining 90 days be served intermittently on weekends.

“I’m having trouble getting to 282 days,” said Judge Gordan Krinke, who felt the sentence was on the low end. Judges are generally required to accept the sentencing recommendations if they come in the form of a joint submission —save for specific circumstances such as the recommendation being beyond the usual range of sentences for similar cases.

“I want to be comfortable that this is in the range,” said Krinke, requesting Crown and defence submit case law that show what range of sentencing is typical for cases like this.

With the judge making this request, defence counsel requested that a pre-sentencing report also be put together for consideration, while a psychiatric assessment with risk assessment also to be completed.

Sentencing will now take place on June 4 at 9 a.m.

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