Crowns seeks 29-year sentence for child sexual abuse

BRANDON — A Crown prosecutor has asked a Brandon judge to impose a 29-year sentence on a man who sexually abused his two daughters for several years.

“(He) was in the supreme apex position of trust over both these children. It was his job to keep them safe. He did the very opposite,” Crown attorney Rich Lonstrup told a Court of King’s Bench judge Tuesday.

The 34-year-old man from a community in southwestern Manitoba pleaded guilty to possessing, making and distributing child sexual abuse material, incest and two counts of sexual interference.

The Brandon Sun is not naming the offender because it could identify the victims.

Lonstrup said the accused “committed multiple severe acts of penetrative and non-penetrative sexual abuse” against one of his biological daughters between September 2019 and October 2023, when she was between eight and 12 years old.

The accused recorded the abuse and shared it online with two people — an offender from France and someone whom he believed to be a pedophile but was an undercover operator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States.

Court heard he induced her not to tell anyone about the abuse with a “pinky promise” and would “pout” when she tried to refuse his sexual advances.

He sexually abused his other daughter between August 2021 and November 2023, when she was around eight to 10 years old, Lonstrup said. He said the accused touched the girl in her vaginal area both over and under her underwear on multiple occasions.

There were no recordings of these incidents, he said.

The man also possessed what the Crown described as a “very small quantity” of child sexual abuse material.

Lonstrup said there were several aggravating factors, including that he was in a position of trust and repeatedly victimized two young children, one of whom was subject to what would be considered the “maximal” level of physical violation.

He said it was aggravating that the accused’s motive in creating the material was to have “tradeable product” to get access to other material and that his level of enthusiasm for the material was “appallingly high.”

“At one point, he literally presents his daughter on a live chat to someone that turned out to be the undercover operator and induced her to state that she enjoyed her own sexual abuse,” he said.

“This case highlights the disconcerting ease by which offenders can network and share this material online,” Lonstrup said.

The Crown accepted that the offending against the younger daughter “was less frequent and less severe in terms of the scale of physical violation,” but said it can still have severe long-term consequences.

Lonstrup said mitigating factors included the man’s early guilty plea, his lack of a prior criminal record and the fact that he has attended counselling and sought “genuine spiritual help for his problems.”

Defence lawyer Scott Newman argued for a sentence of 18 years. He said reports about the accused, including a Gladue report looking into his Métis background, outlined a history of interfamilial sexual abuse that affected multiple generations of his family.

He said the report writer noted the man’s offending started when his childhood abuser “re-entered the family circle.”

Justice Scott Abel is scheduled to sentence the accused in November.

— Brandon Sun