INVISIBLE MOTHER ALERT: And where is the mother in all this? Or was this a single adoptive dad? I gotta wonder.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2010/05/26/14133856.html
Man gets 18 months for abusing daughter
By MEGAN GILLIS, QMI Agency
OTTAWA -- A judge sentenced a man who seemed to regard himself as a “kindly grantor of sexual favours” to 18 months in jail Wednesday for repeatedly sexually abusing his adolescent daughter.
He claimed the girl initiated the sex acts.
The man, who can’t be identified to protect the victim, had pleaded guilty to two counts of invitation to sexual touching and sexual assault against his adopted daughter, who was between 12 and 14 at the time.
“He claimed he was afraid of his daughter and allowed the offences to occur out of fear she would physically harm him if he did not acquiesce,” said Judge Lynn Ratushny, who condemned his victim-blaming.
The man engaged in fondling, oral sex and masturbation with the girl. He took her to buy condoms, saying he didn’t want her to get pregnant, although intercourse wasn’t alleged.
“A father’s duty is to protect his child, not to introduce, instruct and subject her to sexual violations over and over,” Ratushny said.
“(The man) misunderstands and, it seems, continues to misunderstand that he is the adult, he is the parent and it is morally wrong and a serious crime for him to use his daughter’s vulnerability, her young innocence and her young body together with her misguided and uninformed compliance with his sexual demands for his own gratification.”
His lawyer sought house arrest but Ratushny said she had to impose jail time to deter him and others.
She noted that the 18-month sentence is at the lower end of the range but that the Crown wanted to encourage the man to plead guilty to spare the “very fragile” girl, now 16, the ordeal of testifying at a trial.
The girl said in a victim impact statement that she misses her father.