Foster dad gets 10 years for child-sex abuse

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This article was published 30/07/2019 (2320 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man who sexually abused three foster children over the course of nearly a decade has condemned his victims to a “lifetime of trauma and pain,” a judge said Tuesday.

“There are no adjectives to properly describe the court’s repugnance, repudiation and rejection of your vile and depraved acts,” provincial court Judge Ray Wyant told the 49-year-old man, before sentencing him to 10 years in prison.

The man cannot be named, as it might identify his victims.

According to a pre-sentence report prepared for court, the man blamed his actions on child-welfare officials who did not alert him nor his wife to the girls’ prior history of abuse, and alleged the victims were “continually tempting him.”

“Let me state what is obvious… these victims are not responsible for the type of violence that was inflicted on them,” Wyant said. “(Child and Family Services) trusted (the accused) to provide a safe and caring environment for these three children who were already vulnerable as a result of suffering deprivation and worse in their young lives.”

The accused began abusing two of the girls in 2008, when they were nine and 11 years old, respectively, until they left the home in 2014. At which point, he began sexually abusing a now-14-year-old victim.

“I am constantly living in fear and feeling unsafe at nighttimes, just knowing he is out there running loose like a wild animal,” the teen wrote in a victim-impact statement provided to court. “I now question my sexual identity and whether I can be with a man.”

According to the pre-sentence report, the man attempted to diminish the seriousness of his actions by saying he did not have vaginal intercourse with one victim “so she could maintain her virginity for her husband.”

When abusing another of the girls, the man timed the event on his cellphone and would only allow the girl to leave his bedroom when a set time had expired.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca