Serving prisoner gets four more years for sexually assaulting girlfriend’s niece
By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on August 26, 2023.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com A 33-year-old man who is serving a prison sentence for sexually assaulting his daughter when she was only four years old, has been sentenced to another four years for similar offences against his girlfriend’s niece.The man, who can’t be named to protect the identity of the victim, pleaded guilty Friday in Lethbridge court of justice to charges of sexual contact with a child, and making sexually explicit material available to a person under the age of 16.
Court was told that at the time of the offences between January 2019 and August 2020, when the girl was only eight years old, the offender was bound by a release order not to have any contact with children under the age of 16. During an investigation in 2020 by Lethbridge Child and Family Services, the young girl said she stayed at the man’s residence three times a week during the summer of 2020. The man also lived with the child’s aunt.
At times the child was left in the man’s care, during which he would expose his genitals to the girl and show her sexually explicit videos of himself and his girlfriend. During the visits he would also touch the girl inappropriately and “attempt” to have intercourse.
“During these incidents, the accused told (the girl) not to tell anyone as he would get in trouble,” Crown Prosecutor Clayton Giles said.
Giles said the girl told her aunt of the assaults, but when the woman confronted the offender, he threatened to kill her if she told anyone.
In addition to his sentence, the offender must submit a sample of his DNA for the National DNA Data Bank, and he must register with the Sex Offender Information Registry for life. Additional charges of sexual assault of a person under the age of 16, assault, threats to cause death or bodily harm, and sexual exploitation, were withdrawn.
The man attended court by CCTV from the Bowden Institution, a medium security prison south of Red Deer, where he is already serving a seven-year prison term; five years for sexual interference against his daughter, and two years for making child pornography.
According to an agreed statement of facts read in court on Nov. 23, 2021, the man, who pleaded guilty to the charges , gave his daughter a drink of Sleepytime chamomile tea plus three to five milligrams of melatonin. He and his ex-common-law spouse, who is not the girl’s biological mother, then sexually assaulted the child while she was passed out, and made a video recording of the assault.
After he was arrested several years later, the man confessed to police and told them he did it to blackmail his spouse so she wouldn’t leave him.
His ex-spouse told police the offender forced her into the room where the little girl was sleeping and where he began assaulting her. When police showed her a forensic report indicating she was seen in the video taking part in the assault, as well, she said she didn’t have a choice.
The assault, which took place in February 2016, was not discovered until Feb. 6, 2020, after a man bought a storage locker in Lethbridge and found an SD memory card and USB drive, on which he discovered numerous images and videos, including a video of the sexual assault. He took the items to the police, who conducted a forensic examination were able to identify the offenders. Follow @DShurtzHerald on Twitter 4
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