A Prince George provincial court judge is being asked to choose between jail time and house arrest for a 33-year-old local man who has admitted to sexually interfering with his daughter when she was about 12 years old.
While Crown prosecutor Cassandra Malfair is seeking between 18 months and two years less a day behind bars, defence lawyer Keith Jones is arguing the time would be better served as a conditional sentence.
Malfair is also asking that the time be served at the Ford Mountain Correctional Centre in Chilliwack, home to the only sexual offender treatment program in B.C., to be followed by three years probation during which he would be required to take further treatment.
But Jones is contending a conditional sentence, or house arrest, with the man taking community-based programs is the better option, noting the man has no prior criminal record.
If it had been his client's second, third or fourth offence, even if not sexually-related, "I probably wouldn't have much of an argument to make," Jones said Tuesday during a sentencing hearing.
It had also been noted that the man, whose name is protected by a court ordered publication ban against information that would identify the victim, was in counselling for a suicidal state of mind at the time of the offences.
Malfair said police arrested the man in mid-2011 after the daughter filed a complaint that he had forced sexual intercourse on her on two occasions in spring 2003.
He initially denied the daughter's claims but when police appealed to his affections as a father and his moral obligation to correct his past mistakes, he opened up and admitted to sexually abusing the girl when she was about 12 years old.
The man eventually pleaded guilty to sexual interference with a person under 16 years old.
Although apologetic, crying and remorseful when giving his statement to police, he initially denied the offences when speaking to a psychiatrist preparing a pre-sentence report. However, when told the daughter would have to testify in a hearing, he recanted his denial and accepted responsibility, the court was told.
Jones contended that the sentence should be one that will encourage him to "do as much as he possibly can to address some of the problems that led to his offending behaviour in the first place."
"Sending him to jail is certainly not going to do that," Jones continued. "If anything it's going to embitter him and make him more resistant and even once he gets out, he'll be in the community taking programs which his heart will not likely be in."
Calling the matter a serious issue, Judge Darrell O'Byrne reserved decision for about two weeks time.
