‘He groomed her’: trucker gets five years for abducting girl
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/09/2023 (747 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A long-haul trucker arrested after his increasingly intimate online relationship with a 14-year-old Winnipeg girl culminated with him abducting her and the two “running away together” to his Edmonton home has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Briant Vidrih, 31, previously pleaded guilty to one count each of child luring and abduction of a person under 16.
Vidrih, who was diagnosed last year with autism spectrum disorder, has maintained he was only trying to “help” the girl and had no sexual intent.
Provincial court Judge Cindy Sholdice said Vidrih clearly knew what he was doing was wrong, noting his efforts to keep his communications with the girl secret, and called the girl’s abduction “a parent’s worst nightmare.”
“Even though Mr. Vidrih had not yet engaged in explicit sexual contact, his actions and intentions were inherently wrongful,” Sholdice said Tuesday.
“He took advantage of the immaturity of a young child to cultivate a relationship of trust and dependence. He groomed her. He planned to purposely and secretly take a child two provinces away where she had no family or supports.”
Court has heard Vidrih and the girl began exchanging text messages after meeting in an online chat group in April 2019. Within a short time, the two were messaging each other day and night, with the girl pouring out the troubles of her teenage life, including her parents’ impending divorce.
The two made plans to “run away together.”
On Dec. 2, 2019, after much planning, Vidrih picked up the girl at a south Winnipeg doughnut shop and drove her to his newly-rented apartment in Edmonton.
“This is the type of situation that results in a child going missing forever … that’s how it happens,” Crown attorney Adam Gingera told court at a sentencing hearing last month.
Vidrih and the girl saw each other in person two times before he abducted her, the first time in July 2019 at a Tim Hortons restaurant in Red Deer, as the girl and her unsuspecting parents sat in an adjacent booth.
The parents “had no idea that the guy sitting in the booth next to them was Mr. Vidrih, who was there to be around (the girl),” Gingera said.
At a second September 2019 meeting in Winnipeg, they shared a hug.
The day Vidrih abducted her, the girl left her mother a note saying she was running away. The girl’s mother found an unknown phone number on her call history and forwarded it to Winnipeg police, who called Vidrih as the two were still heading to Edmonton.
Vidrih told police he didn’t know where the girl was.
Police called back several hours later, and grew suspicious when his answers didn’t match up. Vidrih admitted the girl was with him and police rescued her from his apartment several hours later.
Vidrih has had a “lifelong difficulty” connecting with other people and sought companionship online, defence lawyer Kevin Minuk told court last month. Since his arrest he has suffered from worsening depression and thoughts of suicide.
Sholdice said Vidrih’s autism diagnosis was a factor for her to consider in arriving at an appropriate sentence, but it did little to diminish his responsibility for his actions.
The diagnosis “helps to understand why (Vidrih) may have turned to the internet to find companionship, it helps to explain his difficulty making and maintaining friendships,” Sholdice said Tuesday.
“However, his diagnosis does not explain his intimate interest in a child or why he would abduct her and secretly have her live with him.”
Vidrih has expressed a willingness to undergo counselling and has strong supports in the community, court was told.
“I am very, very sorry for what I have done,” Vidrih told Sholdice prior to learning his sentence. “I will respect your decision and honour it today.”
Sholdice said a seven-year sentence was appropriate for Vidrih’s crimes, but in the circumstances would “crush” his prospects for rehabilitation.
dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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