Pedophile dad awaits sentencing decision (Saskatoon, Canada)

UNNAMED DAD finally admits he molested his daughter--17 years after the fact.

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Pedophile+awaits+sentencing+decision/2098998/story.html

Pedophile awaits sentencing decision

Defence asks for probation for man who molested daughter

By Lori Coolican, The StarPhoenixOctober 14, 2009 8:41 AM

About 17 years after he first admitted to sexually molesting his daughter during her childhood, a 57-year-old pedophile is now waiting for a judge to decide if he should serve any time behind bars for it.

The victim, now in her 30s, was branded a liar when she first told other family members about the abuse in the mid-1980s, because her father denied anything had happened, a Queen's Bench justice heard Tuesday.

To protect his daughter's identity, the man's name can't be published. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to a charge of indecent assault against her and has been living in Prince Albert while awaiting sentencing.

Standing in the prisoner's box at the end of sentencing arguments, the man faced his daughter and made a stone-faced statement of remorse.

"I apologize for what I did to you. I'm sorry it ever happened," he said.

Defence lawyer Morris Bodnar argued the Crown should have charged his client with the assault against his daughter back in 1991, when he pleaded guilty to another indecent assault -- this time against a 12-year-old stranger he fondled at a public swimming pool in Saskatoon the previous year.

During the preparation of a pre-sentence report at that time, the man admitted he'd also abused his daughter in their home when she was younger -- but she had not yet laid a formal complaint with police, court heard.

Because the Crown did not act on the information by charging him with the crime against his daughter in 1991, it "lay in the weeds for something like 17 years," Bodnar said.

For the incident at the swimming pool, the man served 90 days in jail -- intermittently, on weekends -- and spent three years on probation. Diagnosed by local expert Dr. Robin Menzies as a "heterosexual pedophile," he completed a sex-offender treatment program "and it worked," Bodnar noted, adding his client has not reoffended since that time.

Pedophilia is a mental illness that never ends, "but you can control it, and if you can teach a person to control it, you're OK," Bodnar said. "And that has happened (here)."

The man's abuse of his daughter took place prior to the swimming pool incident, in the mid-1980s. He claims to remember only one incident, but in a statement to police she said there were numerous times when she awoke from a sound sleep to find him fondling her vagina. She was 12 years old at the time.

"Is it not safe to go to sleep?" she said in the statement, which was read aloud in court Tuesday by Crown prosecutor Cory Bliss. "I was young, naive and horribly ashamed."

When her father was in sex-offender treatment, she wrote a letter to him about the effect his abuse had on her life. The letter was read aloud to him in front of a group of fellow offenders and he ended up "telling her off" because the experience was humiliating for him, she added.

"I ended up apologizing to him for that."

In her letter she offered forgiveness, said she loved him and told him he was not a terrible person.

"Because you abused me I know what it's like to feel completely worthless," she wrote. "I could cry for the rest of my life and it wouldn't be enough tears. . . . I would like to feel like I am worth something to you."

Bodnar told court his client has already paid a high price for his actions. His daughter successfully sued him in civil court and he has already paid her about $90,000, as well as buying her a car and helping pay for her university education, he said.

Bodnar told Justice Dan Konkin his client does not deserve any more time behind bars, but is willing to accept probation, community service work or a conditional sentence to be served in the community. He also argued against the Crown's application for an order that would ban him from attending public parks, playgrounds, pools and other places where children congregate.

Bliss argued the age of the victim, the close family relationship and the fact that the crime happened at home -- "the one place a child should feel safe" -- all demand incarceration. A fit sentence would be 31/2 years in prison, he said.

Konkin is expected to render his decision Nov. 6.