Mountie sentenced to 15 years for starving, torturing 11-year-old son

OTTAWA• A disgraced former RCMP officer who starved and tortured his 11-year-old son in a suburban Ottawa basement in 2013 has been sentenced to 15 years in an abuse case the judge said reached extreme, systematic violence that robbed the boy of his childhood.

“This was a breach of the highest form,” Ontario Su- perior Court Justice Robert Maranger told the packed court. “The extreme violence and psychological degradation of this child was beyond comprehension,” the judge said.

For most people involved, the nightmare of the painful trial is over, the judge said, but he noted that it will take the boy, now 15, “a lifetime to heal.”

Maranger convicted the father in November of assault, sexual assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessities of life.

The Mountie, who was fired after his convictions in November, will serve 13 years after being credited for pre-trial custody.

He videotaped his naked and shackled son while he inflicted disturbing, religious- t hemed i nterroga- tions, demanding the emaciated boy repent and screaming he would “weep blood” for his so-called sins.

At one point, the ex-Mountie enlisted a Roman Catholic priest to perform an exorcism.

In one of the videos that reduced defence lawyers and police to tears at trial, the tiny, frightened boy begged: “I want my family back.”

The boy spent the last month of his captivity trying to escape his basement horror in which he was chained to a post as he slept and forced to use a bucket for a toilet while the rest of his family went about their routines upstairs.

That he managed to loosen his chains and escape is what led to the child- abuse case against his father and stepmother, 37, who was also found guilty in November on lesser charges of assault with a weapon (wooden spoon) and failing to provide the necessities of life.

The father testified in his own defence, and presented himself as a victim, speaking for hours about his fragile state of mind. He detailed the troubles of his own childhood in war- torn Lebanon. He talked about dead bodies, bombs and the day he was raped by a teacher.

He spoke of “extreme nightmares” from his youth, his troubled career in the RCMP and how a so- called problem child was the last thing he needed. He tried to explain that he thought his boy was possessed and said he feared his son would grow up to be a sexual predator.

“Me and my son were at war … I had an enemy in front of me.”

Dr. Helen Ward, a psychiatrist hired by the defence, testified that the man suffered from “chronic and severe” PTSD and narcissism. The expert witness who examined him told court he did not express remorse and he tried to explain, not excuse, his horrific acts.

The ex- Mountie saw his son as possessed and wild, though he wasn’t by everyone else’s accounts, from teachers to doctors to neighbours and family.

ME AND MY SON WERE AT WAR … I HAD AN ENEMY.