‘He deserves to have this follow him’: rapist gets 3 years in prison

BRANDON — A woman who was sexually assaulted on the Brandon University campus said she has become a powerful voice for victims as she directly addressed her rapist before he was sentenced to three years in prison.

“Staying silent meant people like you would continue to get away with preying on victims, thinking there were no consequences, and I couldn’t let that happen — not just for myself, but for all people whose voices could not, have not, or will not be heard,” the 28-year-old woman said in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench Monday.

The Indigenous woman from Thompson sobbed as she recalled feeling scared following the sexual assault in the men’s dormitory on Sept. 24, 2017.

“I don’t forgive you. I will, however, thank you for showing me that I’m stronger than I ever thought I could be, and that I don’t have to feel guilty for tolerating anything I’m not OK with,” she said as her hands shook.

A publication ban to protect victims of sexual violence prohibits the Brandon Sun from identifying the woman and the 31-year-old man, who pleaded not guilty to the sexual assault charge during his November 2025 trial.

The woman said she sought counselling and waited five years before she felt ready to report the incident to the Brandon Police Service.

“If I have to suffer for the rest of my life, so should he,” she said. “He deserves to have this follow him and haunt him for life.”

The woman said she considered the accused “a friend” and had known him in her northern community before they both moved to Brandon to pursue post-secondary education.

At trial, the woman testified the accused asked her to hang out in his dorm room and then tried kissing her and initiating sex, but she declined multiple times.

Eventually she agreed to have sex, “just to shut him up,” requesting that he wear a condom. She testified she was experiencing pain from having her head pushed into the mattress and asked him to stop, but he didn’t.

She said she froze when she realized he didn’t care how she felt. When he finished, she noticed a condom on the floor.

The accused denied having sexual intercourse without a condom and instead testified that the rim of the condom tore, so he started performing oral sex on the woman while he put on a new one and threw the used condom on the floor.

Court heard the woman confronted the man less than two months later about why he removed the condom and alleged he had told her he “didn’t want to ruin the mood.” During testimony, the accused disputed that claim.

Justice Elliot Leven convicted the man of sexual assault in April, saying that by silently switching from vaginal intercourse to oral sex without “fresh communicated consent,” he had violated the woman.

Crown attorney Sarah Kok said the accused didn’t express remorse or apologize in his pre-sentence report.

She recommended the court impose a three-and-a-half-year sentence, arguing against the defence’s suggestion of a conditional sentence order.

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison shared letters of support from friends and co-workers of the accused — two of whom he’d had sexual relations with. One of the friends referred to him as a “respectful, kind and considerate” individual, while another wrote they don’t believe he poses a threat to women.

He said his client, who is Métis, suffers from five compression fractures in his spine and is concerned about what may happen to him in jail.

“This man is not a monster at all,” Harrison said.

He argued a conditional sentence and being registered as a sex offender for 10 years instead of 20 years would meet the principles of deterrence and denunciation.

Leven said he considered the gravity of the offence, the systemic and background factors of the victim and the accused, and other aspects, including the youthfulness of the offender at the time of the assault and the absence of a guilty plea.

He imposed a three-year sentence minus nine days of time served and ordered the accused to register as a sex offender for 20 years, submit a DNA sample and follow a 10-year weapons prohibition.

— Brandon Sun