B.C. man who raped, brutalized wife for almost a decade gets nine years in jail
Credit to Author: David Carrigg| Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2019 18:12:53 +0000
A B.C. man has been given a nine-year sentence after his wife went to social workers and police to report almost a decade of violent rape and abuse.
Justice Patrice Abrioux, of the Supreme Court of B.C., heard that the mother of three remained fearful that her ex-husband — who maintains complete innocence — will make good on a threat to kill her when he is released as early as 2022. At the latest, he will get out on statutory parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
Abrioux heard that the couple met in 2003, were married in 2006 and separated in August 2015 after the 37-year-old man’s most violent sexual attack. In March 2019, after an eight-day trial, he was found guilty of assault, sexual assault causing bodily harm and sexual assault involving use of a weapon, based on “overwhelming evidence from multiple witnesses, both professional and personal.”
In his reasons for sentence released Monday, Abrioux wrote that the woman was beaten regularly during the first three years of marriage, resulting in black eyes, bruises, cuts and scrapes. In 2009, the man began regularly and violently raping the victim, which escalated to sexual attacks using a weapon.
In applying a sentence, Abrioux wrote that “it took years to disclose publicly what was occurring, even though she confided in her physicians from time to time.”
He wrote that the man “has shown no indications of remorse or insight into his actions. He maintains he did not commit the offences and does so not withstanding the corroborative evidence … including the physician’s clinical records, photographs and his son’s evidence, which was not challenged in any way on cross-examination.”
The Crown argued that the pressures placed on the woman went beyond the visible physical consequences, as she was also “psychologically trapped within this environment by fears of financial and child custody issues, as well as the ever-present fear that the sexual violence could and would get worse if she resisted or sought escape in some way.”
Court heard the man held down a $90,000 a year job with a large corporation when he was arrested.
A pre-sentence report found his upbringing was largely uneventful, apart from his parents separating when he was young. He was not abused as a child and had no history of psychiatric problems.
The pre-sentence report also stated that he claimed he was found guilty due to his wife’s “vindictiveness and controlling nature.” He denied all the charges and claimed he had a good explanation for the three times he was arrested for breaching a restraining order against her.
According to a doctor’s report, “treatment recommendations here remain problematic. He, in fact, is not willing to look at any type of sexual abuse counselling.”
The man claimed in defence that he was a productive member of society for many years, had numerous letters of reference and the support of a common-law spouse (who said there had been no bad conduct toward herself or her teenage daughters.) The man was living with this woman and her daughters prior to sentencing.
The names of the offender and the victim cannot be reported due to a court-ordered publication ban.
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