Judge jails teen 17 years for two vicious sex assaults on same night

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This article was published 02/08/2017 (2999 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of the harshest sentences of its kind in Manitoba has been imposed on a Winnipeg teen who was a “willing and active participant” in extreme sexual violence against two victims.

Robert McKay, 19, was sentenced Wednesday to 17 years for two counts of aggravated sexual assault for random attacks he and his cousin, Justin Hudson, carried out on unsuspecting young women nearly three years ago. In the early hours of Nov. 8, 2014, as they walked along city streets with a plan to break into cars, they chose their victims at random and raped and robbed a 23-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl, who was left for dead in the freezing Assiniboine River. The victims can’t be identified under a publication ban. A public outcry for justice came in the aftermath of the brutal attacks, when the case attracted national attention.

 

McKay was a minor at the time — he committed the crimes in the wee hours after his 17th birthday — but was sentenced as an adult after Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Gerald Chartier decided the youth criminal justice system and its maximum three-year sentence wouldn’t be enough to punish McKay for the “egregious” and extremely violent attacks.

“Mr. McKay was a willing and active participant in this crime,” Chartier said.

“Each of the sexual assaults involved high levels of gratuitous violence, leaving the first victim close to death and the second complainant was subjected to a prolonged sexual assault, which had an element of confinement as the complainant was forced to follow the two accused to where she was assaulted at a second location,” he said.

Crown prosecutor Jennifer Comack had recommended a 20-year sentence; McKay’s defence team sought four years and three years for each aggravated sexual assault, served concurrently.

McKay has cognitive difficulties and has been diagnosed with alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder, which is on the fetal-alcohol spectrum. The judge said he took the diagnosis into account, but that he believed it didn’t severely affect McKay’s impulse control and that he made his own choices while committing the crimes.

During a court appearance in February, McKay broke down in tears as he apologized to the victims, saying he understood what they went through because of his own past sexual abuse.

His cousin, then 20-year-old Justin Hudson, whom his lawyer described as a “poster child” for the failures of the child-welfare system, received a 23-year sentence in May. Court heard Hudson showed signs of anti-social personality disorder and may have orchestrated the attacks in an attempt to relieve his internal anger.

One of the young women, who was 23 when she was attacked, has been present throughout the long court process and said Wednesday she’s relieved it’s now coming to an end. The sentence McKay received is believed to be unprecedented in Manitoba, the Crown said — one of the highest for a youth sentenced as an adult on aggravated sexual assault charges.

“I feel good about it. I noticed that he’s been remorseful the whole time, and the way he has been in court is respectful, which is way different from how Justin Hudson has been in court,” the woman said. “I’m happy about (the sentence). I just feel sad that he’s done this to himself, because he’s so young.”

McKay admitted to pinning down the first victim while Hudson raped her. He stole her winter jacket, running shoes and iPod, later using the device to photograph himself wearing the victim’s clothes. The photo was automatically uploaded to the victim’s iCloud account, which can be accessed from different devices. She discovered the photo of McKay wearing her jacket while she was recovering in hospital.

In a victim impact statement filed in court, the then-16-year-old girl wrote about how the discovery affected her.

“After beating me with weapons, you left my body, naked and nearly dead. You stole my jacket and shoes and took my iPod. And then you posted a picture on Facebook of yourself wearing my clothes. When I saw that later, I was sickened that you felt so little remorse and instead bragged about what you had just done,” she wrote.

Hudson threw the 16-year-old girl into the Assiniboine River, hitting her with a hammer and leaving her on the riverwalk path near the Donald Street Bridge after she managed to climb out of the frigid water. A passerby found her unconscious and hypothermic at about 7 a.m., and she went into cardiac arrest after doctors tried to revive her. She was in hospital for seven days and underwent several surgeries.

 

The second attack happened after the 16-year-old had been left for dead. Hudson and McKay were walking in the 300 block of Sherbrook Street when they came upon a 23-year-old woman. Hudson hit her in the head with a baseball bat and beat her before he and McKay sexually assaulted her multiple times while blood poured from her face and mouth. In an effort to stop the violence, the woman agreed to go with them to a second location. Hudson assaulted her again in an abandoned car and took her to a Sherbrook Street residence before they eventually let her go.

Chartier decided on a nine-year sentence for each attack, then reduced the overall penalty by one year, resulting in a 17-year sentence.

McKay had a lesser role in the first attack, holding the teen down and robbing her, Chartier said Wednesday. But he sexually assaulted the second victim multiple times.

“Mr. McKay’s conduct in that assault is nearly equal to that of the co-accused, except that he did not initially assault the victim with a baseball bat. He sexually assaulted the complainant more than once, together with the other accused, who also sexually assaulted the complainant more than once,” the judge said.

A hearing is to be set in the fall so a judge can decide where McKay should serve his sentence, whether he is sent to an adult federal prison or is instead locked up in a youth facility. With time-and-a-half credit for each day he’s already spent behind bars, McKay has 12 years and 11 months left to serve.

 

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay