Parent handed 28 years for ‘deviant’ sexual abuse

A Winnipeg mother who pushed her young children into sex acts with each other, their stepfather and herself by making false claims strangers would harm them if they didn’t comply has been sentenced to 28 years in prison.

“The children would have taken her threat seriously,” provincial court Judge Stacy Cawley said Tuesday. “The threat… suggested to the children that their family members’ safety was dependent on their co-operation. In this way, (the accused) exploited their love for her and their family in order to manipulate them.”

“Their mother did not just steal their childhood and their adolescence,” Cawley said. “The harm she has inflicted will likely be carried by these children for the rest of their lives.”

The 36-year-old woman pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual interference and two counts of making child pornography. Her 40-year-old former partner pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual interference and was sentenced Tuesday to 14 years in prison.

Court heard the two offenders, individually and as a couple, repeatedly abused the woman’s son and daughter over a three-year period, ending when they were 15 and 12 years old, respectively.

At the time, the children lived with their maternal grandparents and were abused during bimonthly visits to their mother’s home.

The children disclosed the abuse to an aunt in May 2023 after which Child and Family Services was contacted and statements were provided to investigators.

An agreed statement of facts previously provided to court says the children’s parents had not yet been charged when police responded to a domestic violence call at the couple’s home on June 1 and the male offender “spontaneously indicated to officers… that he had touched both children sexually in the past and needed to go to jail.”

The children’s mother was arrested later that day and police seized her cellphones. Later, it was discovered the phones stored a dozen videos and seven pictures depicting her engaged in sex acts with the children and the children engaged in sex acts with each other.

Court heard the woman forced the children to participate in sexual acts by threat, warning them that if they did not comply, other people would go to the house and hurt the family.

Each offender blamed the other for initiating the abuse.

A pre-sentence report prepared for court says the woman claimed she abused the children under threat of harm from the male offender’s gang associates. She claimed she provided the videos to the male offender to give to the gangsters.

Cawley dismissed the woman’s claim as “nonsensical” and lacking in any confirmatory details.

“Her bald assertion presented as an attempt to minimize her personal responsibility for her abhorrent actions,” Cawley said.

Cawley said the woman’s claim she derived no sexual pleasure from the abuse was belied by the sex abuse videos found on her phone.

The videos are “disturbing and depict her moaning in sexual pleasure and urging her children to continue with the sex acts. I do not believe she was acting… I find the reason she engaged in the abuse was to satisfy her deviant sexual interests.”

While the female offender had a difficult upbringing and a history of troubling domestic relationships, there was nothing in her background to temper her responsibility for her actions, Cawley said.

“Her level of betrayal is at the highest end of the spectrum,” she said.

The male offender claimed he was high on drugs when the woman coerced him into abusing his stepdaughter. The man said he went on to abuse both children under the woman’s direction, fearing she would deny him access to a third child they shared together if they were to separate.

“Clearly, he did not need to follow through with the sexual abuse, but he chose to do so,” Cawley said.

The woman and man received credit for time served, reducing their remaining sentences to 25 years and 10½ years, respectively.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca