Child-abusing couple face hefty sentence

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This article was published 25/07/2019 (2431 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In a case that both prosecution and defence describe as appalling, a Manitoba couple has admitted to sexually abusing the man’s two young daughters, depriving them of food and keeping them in a locked room where they were forced to defecate on the floor.

But now, as sentencing looms, the man is pointing fingers at both the victims and his partner in a “last-ditch attempt” to evade responsibility, a Dauphin court heard Thursday.

The now 41-year-old male accused and 29-year-old female co-accused pleaded guilty in 2017 to sexual assault and production of child pornography.

Police arrested the couple in August 2014 after one of the girls reported the abuse to a relative, who contacted Child and Family Services.

According to a pre-sentence report provided to court, the man claimed he “had no idea” his co-accused recorded a 20-minute video of him sexually assaulting his daughters, a claim Crown attorney Jay Funke dismissed as “absurd.”

“The subject appeared more concerned with not knowing his girlfriend had been taking pictures of him engaged in sexual activities with his daughters, rather than his inappropriate behaviours toward them,” the pre-sentence report said.

The man claimed he sexually assaulted his daughters “only once” after unwittingly smoking a marijuana cigarette provided by his co-accused. He went on to say he wanted no further contact with his daughters, who he alleged were being “brainwashed” by other family members.

The Crown has recommended a sentence of 16 to 18 years for the man and 13 to 15 years for the woman.

“I’m not certain I could imagine circumstances more horrendous than the circumstances faced by these children in this particular case,” Funke told Justice Sandra Zinchuk at a sentencing hearing last year. “The extent of the maltreatment these children underwent cannot be overstated.”

When questioned by police, the older of the two girls, then seven years old, said she and her sister would take turns “mak(ing) love” with their father while the woman recorded it on a video camera.

The girl said she and her sister were fed just twice a day and were often left hungry. She said they had to sit on the floor on their knees, their hands behind their back, as their father ate.

“We (weren’t) allowed to eat,” she said. “We just get on our knees, face him, and watch him eat. And dad and (the female accused) decide if we get to eat.”

After the girls were caught sneaking food at night, they were placed in a locked bedroom for several days, and let out just twice a day to eat. Denied access to a washroom for much of the day, the girls were forced to defecate and urinate in the bedroom. That, in turn, saw the girls punished by being sprayed with cold water from a garden hose.

Text messages recovered from the couple’s cellphones include one in which the woman discusses sexually abusing one of the girls. In other texts, exchanged after CFS became involved, the couple discusses deleting images from their phones.

“I pulled my SD card, but it’s taking forever to delete,” the man said.

“OK,” the woman replied. “I got the pictures deleted, but I had to go to the web.”

Zinchuk adjourned sentencing to October.

 

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca