A father bid a tearful goodbye to his new partner in a Barrie courtroom on Wednesday after being sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for twice sexually assaulting his former partner two years ago in their family home.
“It is a fit and fair sentence,” given the circumstances of the assaults, said Superior Court Madam Justice Laura Bird, as she wrapped up passing sentence.
A publication ban that prohibits identifying the victim in the sexual assault is in effect. The same ban does not cover the accused, but BarrieToday, out of an abundance of caution, is not identifying him to protect the identify of their children.
Court heard evidence that the couple were living apart under the same roof when the man came home from a concert on a snowy night in March 2023. The man then raped the woman, who fled the home in the middle of the night in a snowstorm.
Bird, in passing sentence, described a second assault that took place about a day later after the woman returned to the home, which prompted her to go to police.
The man was arrested soon after and released on an undertaking. He was free on that undertaking until he was taken into custody at the close of proceedings.
Bird convicted the man in a judge-alone trial late last year.
"(The attacks) were a way of (him) maintaining possession of her because he could not, or would not, accept" that the relationship was over, said Bird.
The case was unusual in that there was no dispute that the man was otherwise of good character, a hardworking, productive member of society. Most of all, he was, by all accounts, a good father.
The victim vouched for her former partner’s positive role in their children’s lives. The eldest of those kids filed a letter with the court asking Bird to spare his father jail time. Multiple letters of support from others were also filed ahead of sentencing.
The Crown had sought a sentence of between five and six years, while the defence asked for two to three years, with the possibility of house arrest if Bird came in at the low end of that range. (House arrest is only an option for sentences that are two years or less.)
Citing the case’s aggravating and mitigating factors that effectively cancelled each other out, the judge landed about in the middle, which meant a penitentiary sentence for the man, who had no criminal record until now.
Bird said she thought the man was “highly unlikely to be before the court again” after he’s released, but nonetheless was “solely responsible for his current situation.”
