A 35-year-old man will know today how much more time he will spend in jail for sexually interfering with his two young stepchildren.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Richard Goepel will give his decision this afternoon after listening to submissions Monday from the Crown prosecutor and defence lawyer regarding the case.
The man, whose name cannot be printed under a court-ordered publication ban because it will identify the victims, committed an act against his stepson when he was 10 or 11 years old and a number of incidents with his stepdaughter when she was nine, the court heard during the hearing.
The act with the stepson occurred when the boy was sleeping on a makeshift bed on a couch in their Prince George home one night when the stepfather put his hand under the covers and over his pyjamas and fondled his genitals for several minutes.
The incidents with the girl involved wrestling games that would end with the stepfather fondling her breasts often when the mother was not at home.
The two disclosed the incidents to their mother and police only after there was a falling out between the man and the mother and he left the home. The stepfather testified he did not remember the incidents but was also probably intoxicated at those times.
Victim impact statements from the boy, girl and the mother that were read into the record suggested the stepfather fostered an environment of fear in the household. He threatened to tie the children to their beds and set the house on fire, played a game of "can't see" involving a knife that the children said often went too far.
He would also threaten the mother, telling her he was not afraid to do life in jail, threatening to punch her in the stomach when she was pregnant and sending her a Christmas card with veiled threats.
The court also heard the man was a victim of sexual abuse himself, at the hands of his maternal stepgrandfather. And while his own stepfather was described as a good parent, his stepmother had trouble with substance abuse and extreme forms of discipline.
The man has been in custody for one year and Crown prosecutor Cassandra Malfair is seeking an additional year in jail to ensure he takes a 15-week program for sex abusers at Ford Mountain Correctional Centre in Chilliwack.
Defence lawyer Keith Jones suggested that upon release, the man's probation include time in a residency program on Vancouver Island aimed at First Nations people with histories of substance abuse and sexual abuse.
The man apologized to the victims at the end of the submissions and said he was ready to serve his time and meet the requirements of his probation.
"I just don't want to have any more victims," he said.
