ABDUCTION CONVICTION
Sentencing set for Nov. 15
A man was found guilty Monday of kidnapping, repeatedly assaulting and keeping a woman locked in a closet.
Ryan Raymond Dechambre, 30, was convicted of a series of charges related to the abduction and weeklong captivity of a woman in July 2016.
The woman, whose identity is protected under a court-ordered publication ban, testified about her ordeal during a trial that began earlier this month.
“She feared for her life,” Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Belzil said before convicting Dechambre of kidnapping, uttering a threat to cause bodily harm, sexual assault, unlawful confinement, assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and extortion.
Two other charges were withdrawn by the Crown.
Dechambre slouched in the prisoner’s box as Belzil read his verdict, and didn’t appear to react to the verdict. Across the courtroom in the gallery, his victim sat listening with a support worker at her side.
After encountering Dechambre on 118 Avenue at about 2:30 a.m. on July 20, 2016, the woman agreed to trade sex for money and Dechambre drove her to Rundle Park. After they had sex, Dechambre turned violent. Court heard he pulled the woman’s coat over her head and dragged her back to his car. He drove her to a residence where he kept her for the next seven days.
For the first few days of her captivity, the woman was kept naked, locked in two different closets in the house. Dechambre would only let her out so that he could sexually assault her and to force her to massage him while he fell asleep.
He sexually assaulted her 10 times during the week, the woman said. Dechambre also beat her with an electrical cord and ran a knife across her throat. A few days into the captivity, he forced her to clean the house for him.
While testifying, she said she was too frightened to try to escape while Dechambre slept.
A week into her captivity, Dechambre drove her to a bank and forced her to withdraw money from her account and give it to him. He then dropped her off on a street corner and told her to prostitute herself so that he could pick her up later and get the money. He took her identification cards, which police later recovered from the car.
The woman went directly to the home of a friend, who encouraged her to call the police.
Investigators searching Dechambre’s home found a blanket, fan and bottle of water on the floor of one of the closets where the women said she was locked inside.
Belzil found that none of the arguments raised by the defence raised reasonable doubt, as the woman was a credible witness and police searches found evidence that corroborated her story.
Dechambre will remain in custody while awaiting his sentencing hearing which is scheduled for Nov. 15.
Both a psychological assessment and a pre-sentencing report were ordered.