Woman jailed 16 months for allowing spouse to sexually assault her daughter

Having allowed her husband to sexually abuse her teenage daughter — just as her own mother had once turned a blind eye to sexual abuse — a Fort Qu’appelle-area woman has been handed a jail term.

The 47-year-old woman — who cannot be named due to a courtimposed publication ban protecting the identity of her daughter — appeared at Regina provincial court on Friday where she learned her sentence on charges of procurement and failing to appear in court.

In September, Judge Leslie Halliday heard arguments from Crown and defence counsel on the case, the Crown having requested an 18-month jail sentence and the defence hoping for the 45-day minimum.

While the maximum sentence on the charge has since increased, at the time of the 2008 offences the maximum was two years.

In a decision weighted heavily with consideration for the traumas the woman endured as an Indigenous person — including her own sexual abuse as a child — Halliday found the Crown’s position already seemed to take many of those circumstances into account.

Factoring in the seriousness of the offence, which included the daughter’s eventual pregnancy, the judge opted to impose a 16-month jail sentence to be followed by 20 months probation.

“(Her) life experiences as an Aboriginal person are heart-wrenchingly and disturbingly similar to the circumstances surrounding the crime she has committed,” the judge said.

Halliday recounted details of the offence, which didn’t come to light until 2011 when the girl reported what had happened to her over a three-to-four-month period three years earlier when she was 14.

Court heard the abuse began shortly after the girl moved in with her mother and stepfather.

The girl reported her stepfather smoked marijuana with her and then had sex with her while her mother slept.

Midway through, her mother walked in. The next day, the mother told the girl her stepfather wanted to see her. The girl expected an apology, but instead was again sexually assaulted.

(Her) life experiences

... are heartwrenchingly ... similar to the circumstances surrounding the crime she has committed.

Court heard the abuse continued almost daily when the mother and stepfather were alone with her. She eventually became pregnant with her stepfather’s child.

The girl described feeling “like a toy her mother did not care about,” and reported feelings of anxiety and depression that left her contemplating suicide.

Halliday referred to documents filed with the court that detailed the mother’s own tragic background, having herself been sexually assaulted as a child by family, abuse her own mother had been aware of.

While the judge expressed concern over some of the attitudes the mother presented to the writer of a pre-sentence report — she reportedly blamed her daughter and believed she was trying to steal her boyfriend — Halliday concluded there is no doubt a link exists between those attitudes and the woman’s troubled background.

Despite that, the serious, prolonged nature of the offence, the severe impact on the victim and what Halliday termed an “unfathomable breach of trust” meant the judge opted not to stray far below the Crown’s requested sentence.

The woman — who has no previous criminal record — will also be placed on the national sex offender registry for 20 years.

The stepfather’s charges remain before the court.