Twenty years for sex crimes against daughter

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This article was published 30/12/2021 (1547 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg woman who chose to sacrifice her young daughter to the sexual appetite of her boyfriend rather than lose him before abusing the girl herself has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

“The sexual crimes (she) committed in relation to her daughter are among the most severe one can imagine,” said Queen’s Bench Justice Rick Saull in a written decision.

“This is especially so in view of the predictable physical and psychological harm that was caused by (the woman’s) betrayal of her own flesh and blood,” said Saull, who called the facts of the case “enraging.”

The 27-year-old woman pleaded guilty to one count each of sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, making child pornography and possession of child pornography for offences that spanned a 16-month period, beginning when the victim was four years old.

The woman’s 33-year-old co-accused was convicted of several sex assault- and child pornography-related offences and sentenced last January to 22 years in prison.

Police first arrested the two offenders in October 2016, after the woman’s brother reported finding child pornography on an electronic device she had accessed. At the time, the couple was separated and the woman was living with her brother.

A subsequent police investigation uncovered 300 pictures on the man’s cellphones of the couple abusing the girl, Facebook and text chats discussing the sexual abuse of children and evidence the man had shared abuse images via a peer-to-peer social media app.

At the time the abuse occurred, the child was living primarily with her father. The girl was abused during weekend visits with her mother at the home she shared with the male offender.

At a hearing before the male offender’s trial, the woman claimed she only abused her daughter after the man threatened her with violence if she didn’t participate. She later testified she had lied, admitting she was a “willing participant” and wanted to keep the man happy and preserve their relationship.

Court was told the couple were living together in late 2015 when the man called the female offender from the bar saying he was afraid he would touch her daughter sexually if he went home. The woman told him to come home anyway, assuring him she would not let him touch her daughter.

The man sexually assaulted the girl for the first time that night, as her mother watched. From that point on, the abuse escalated, and the girl’s mother began assaulting her as well.

Confronted at trial with cellphone images documenting the abuse, the man steadfastly denied he was the man in the pictures, claiming his ex-girlfriend had hired a look-alike to frame him.

In a police video interview provided to court, the young victim recalled her mother and the male offender both laughing as they abused her and afterward when they looked at cellphone pictures of the assaults.

In a victim impact statement provided to court, the girl’s father said she showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder at age five and at age six was saying she wanted to die.

“(He) is concerned about the extreme disadvantage (the girl) will face in ever having the kind of family life and loving relationship with a life partner that most parents want for their children,” Saull said.

Saull credited the woman for time served, reducing her remaining sentence to 13 years.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca