B.C.’s Court of Appeal has increased the sentence of a man found guilty of prolonged sexual abuse of his younger half-sister and possession of child pornography.
“To be fit, a sentence imposed for child sexual violence must reflect and give full effect to the profound wrongfulness and harmfulness of the offence, in accordance with the modern understanding,” Justice Gail Dickson said, writing for the court. “In my view, the sentence imposed in this case failed to meet these criteria."
A.B. had been sentenced to two-years-less-a-day in prison plus three years of probation after being convicted in Port Coquitlam Provincial Court in July 2023.
A.B. had pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual interference and one count of possession of child pornography.
The Crown appealed the sentence, calling it demonstrably unfit..
And, in a March 7 decision handed down in Vancouver, a unanimous three-judge panel agreed.
“The sentence is increased to four-and-one-half-years’ imprisonment on the sexual interference counts and six months’ imprisonment consecutive on the possession of child pornography count,” Dickson said.
The decision said A.B., who is 11 years older than his half-sister, began sexually abusing her when he was approximately 18 and she was about seven. The abuse continued until she was about 13.
The incidents spanned July 2011 to December 2017.
She said the abuse was about twice a month at first but decreased in frequency as she got older. When she objected, the decision said, he told her he was also doing it with another family member.
The trial court heard the half-sister realized the wrongfulness of A.B.’s behaviour when she learned from her peers and through social media.
“She confronted the respondent and disclosed the abuse to their family. In 2020, at the behest of family members, the (A.B.) turned himself in to police and provided a statement in which he admitted the sexual abuse, although he minimized its degree and duration,” Dickson said.
The half-sister also provided a statement to police describing the crimes.
Dickson said the judge erroneously found A.B.’s moral blameworthiness was diminished by his depression, placed him towards the lower end of the trust spectrum, and treated the disruption of his family unit as a mitigating consequence.
As a result, Dickson said, the trial judge skewed the balance of aggravating and mitigating factors unduly in A.B.’s favour and “failed to give proper effect to his high moral blameworthiness and the harmfulness of his offences.”
“She also failed to impose a sentence that reflected the harm caused by the child pornography offence and misapprehended the evidence on how that offence came to light,” Dickson said. “In overall consequence, she imposed a sentence that is demonstrably unfit.”
Glacier Media has changed the initials used in the decision to avoid any possibility of identifying the half-sister.
