Mother pleads guilty to allowing longtime partner to have sex with daughter

Having herself once been the victim of sexual abuse by her stepfather, a Saskatchewan woman later allowed the same thing to happen to her own daughter.

The 47-year-old woman — who can’t be named because of a courtimposed publication ban protecting the identity of the complainant — pleaded guilty to a charge of a parent or guardian procuring sexual activity, as well as a failure to appear in court. She appeared at Regina provincial court on Wednesday, when Judge Leslie Halliday listened to sentencing arguments from Crown and defence counsel.

Defence lawyer Tyne Hagey said her client endured residential school and the foster care system, and suffered through sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. Past traumas led to substance abuse issues, which plagued her around the time of the offences against her daughter in 2008.

“This is a case of extreme neglect and of a parent who didn’t step up to bat when she needed to protect her child,” Hagey said of her client.

But, Hagey added, this case doesn’t bear the hallmarks of other procurement cases, in which a parent or guardian uses a child as a means of getting money or some other benefit.

Crown prosecutor Leona Andrews said the incidents first came to light in March of 2011 when the girl came forward to report what had happened three years earlier when she was 14.

Court heard the girl had moved into the Fort Qu’appelle-area home shared by her mother and her longtime common-law husband. The girl described the home as one in which partying and marijuana use was common.

It was in early 2008, the girl said, that her stepfather shared some marijuana with her. Afterward, while her mother was asleep, the man had sex with the girl. The girl reported that midway through, her mother walked in.

Andrews told the court the mother went to the girl the next day, telling her that her stepfather wanted to see her. The girl expected an apology. Instead, she found her stepfather naked. Once again, he had sex with her.

Court heard the abuse continued for several months, the girl reporting it happened almost daily, save the days when someone besides her mother and stepfather was at the house.

Eventually, the girl became pregnant. DNA testing would reveal the father to be the girl’s mother’s common-law.

The man remains before the court with his own charges.

Hagey said the relationship between the mother and her common-law husband ended a year or two later. She said mother and daughter now have a “complicated” but generally positive relationship, and that the mother acts as a grandmother to her daughter’s child.

Andrews noted sentencing needs to fall within the range that existed in 2008, when the minimum sentence for this offence was 45 days in jail, and the maximum was two years. Andrews asked for 18 months.

Halliday reserved her decision.