Jailed for sex assault Vanderhoof man gets 90 days

A Vanderhoof man will begin a 90-day jail sentence this weekend for a sexual assault on a family friend.

The man - who can't be identified under a court-ordered publication ban on the release of information that would identify the victim - will serve his sentence on an intermittent basis, heading to the Prince George Regional Correctional Centre for weekend stays.

The 44-year-old was sentenced by B.C Supreme Court Justice Ron Tindale on Tuesday for a sexual assault conviction stemming from a September 2011 incident.

"These type of offenses have a long-lasting impact on the victims and are taken seriously by the courts," said Tindale. The sentence, which also comes with a two-year probation period once the jail term is carried out and 10 years on the national sex offender registry, was the product of a joint submission from the defense and Crown counsels.

According to facts of the case read out at the sentencing, a then-24-year-old woman went to the man's home to pick him up for a family celebration. She was greeted at the door by the man's 14-year-old daughter. While the daughter went to have a shower, the woman and the man sat on separate couches in the living room.

After a period of conversation, the man got up from his seat and began pushing the woman down onto the couch. He unzipped her hooded sweatshirt and began to fondle her beneath her shirt and bra, despite her protests. The act ended when the pair heard the water from the daughter's shower shut off.

Shaken and confused, the woman ran to her vehicle outside where the man eventually met her and persuaded her to keep quiet. She eventually went to the police a handful of days later.

The man also sent a text message to her parents less than a week later, asking her father to pass on his apology.

According to Tindale, the man had some things working in his favour, given that he was married with children, gainfully employed and had no previous criminal record. But he acknowledged the damage done to the victim, who had two victim impact statements filed with the court.

"It's clear from those statements that this event was traumatic for her and has caused her long lasting anxiety and other emotional problems," Tindale said. He also read from a pre-sentence report where a probation officer's conversation with the woman indicated she had difficulty going to town by herself in the first year after the incident.

"She explained that if she saw him, the anxiety would take over and tears would come instantly," Tindale read, also noting the woman described an aversion to going to the workplace of the man's wife.