A 49-year-old man was sentenced Friday to three-and-a-half years in prison for sexually assaulting his stepdaughter over a period of about five years, beginning when she was five years old.
In issuing her decision, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Heather Holmes said the abuse has left the victim, now an adult, with serious psychological issues that in turn have had physical manifestations.
"Even now, she has trouble sleeping and often experiences terrible nightmares," Holmes said. "Her teeth grinding and clenching have required significant dental work and she has ongoing anxiety with periodic panic attacks and has also faced periods of depression severe enough to have led to attempted suicide."
The incidents occurred began 1993, just after the man and the victim's mother began what was to be a 21-year relationship, and ended in 1999 while they were living in Fort St. James.
The man's name cannot be printed under a court-ordered publication ban against information that would identify the victim. It was not clear if he continued to live in Fort St. James at the time of Friday's sentencing.
At first, the instances were sporadic, Holmes said, perhaps a month apart, but escalated to almost daily by the time she was in Grade 2 or 3. They came to an end when she was in Grade 4 after her mother took her aside to ask her why she was having so much trouble in school and the victim replied that her stepfather was "bugging" her.
The victim explained during the trial that the term was used to describe the sexual conduct.
The victim continues to have issues around trusting others and her sense of self.
"She explains that during her childhood she resented, sometimes to the point of hate, many of the people around her for not recognizing what [the man] was doing to her and bringing it to a halt," Holmes said. "Her relationship with her mother probably suffered permanent damage as a result.
"Instead of having the happy and care-free childhood she should have had, she was angry, lost, alone, degraded and helpless."
The victim left home at age 16 and descended into drug and alcohol addiction "which, fortunately, she has had the strength to overcome," Holmes said.
A police investigation was initiated several years later and the man's relationship with the victim's mother ended about six months after he was arrested.
In a probation officer's report it was noted the man admitted he did wrong and expected it would come to light eventually. However, the court also heard the man describing the common law relationship as dysfunctional and his blame of the victim's mother.
"He denied being sexually attracted to children and had no explanation for the offence except stress which he attributed to the behaviour, as he reported it, of [the victim's] mother through the 21-year relationship," Holmes said.
The probation officer also found the man expressed no insight into the effects of the offence on the victim and while he was willing to undergo counselling he was unwilling to go through group counselling because he did not want to talk about his past.
But Holmes also noted that just prior to sentencing the man did read the stepdaughter's victim impact statement and now realizes how much damage he has caused her.
Holmes said the man had his own challenges as a child, primarily in the form of an abusive father. His parents eventually separated when he was 16 years old and he moved out at age 18 and has since overcome substance abuse issues of his own.
The man had admitted to using his fingers and at question during the trial, held in February, was whether he used his penis. Holmes found he did in three instances.
Defence counsel was seeking a conditional sentence for the man while Crown prosecution argued for four to six years in prison.
