Dad who beat daughter gets conditional discharge

The case of a man who beat his 11-year-old daughter with a coat hanger during a family dispute left an experienced Saskatoon provincial court judge wondering how to craft an appropriate punishment of his own.

“I’m struggling with this one,” Judge Albert Lavoie said after hearing how the man saw most of his family slaughtered during a Sudanese village raid and escaped by walking to a refugee camp in Kenya when he was five years old.

Pausing intermittently throughout Monday’s sentencing hearing, Lavoie decided to give the man a three-year conditional discharge.

He will not have a criminal record if he abides by his conditions.

The man, whose name Lavoie banned from publication to protect the daughter’s identity, pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon. Court heard he hit the girl with a plastic coat hanger approximately 20 times, leaving bruises all over her face, arm and thighs.

As part of his probation order, the man must take a parenting program through Family Service Saskatoon. Lavoie said he needs to learn how to appropriately discipline and care for children in Canada.

“You don’t strike a child like that under any circumstances,” Lavoie told the father. “This child did nothing wrong.”

Presenting the facts, Crown prosecutor Bryce Pashovitz said the father was angry that his daughter went over to a friend’s house to get a free bike “without his consent.” He drove to the friend’s house and screamed at the girl on the way home, court heard.

Once home, the girl told her friend that her father was beating her and asked the friend to call police.

Pashovitz argued for an 18-month suspended sentence — a jail sentence served under strict conditions in the community — saying it’s aggravating that the assault was on a child and committed by someone in a position of trust.

Lavoie said the discharge would not be contrary to the public interest because it will allow the family to heal.

The daughter wrote in a victim impact statement that she is scared of her father and feels safe living with her grandmother in Alberta, a private placement made through the family, a social worker told court.

The man loves his daughter and knows what he did was wrong, defence lawyer Chris Lavier said. This isn’t a situation of prolonged abuse, he told court. He said the man “snapped” over mounting frustrations with his daughter’s past behaviour.

Court heard the man came to

Canada, where his daughter was born, and raised her alone until marrying his wife in 2013. He is a Canadian citizen.

A conditional discharge would allow his client to continue working and providing for his family, Lavier said when asking the court to take the “rare circumstances” of this case into account. His voice trembled as he detailed how the man has experienced “the absolute bottom of the pit in terms of depravity.”

Lavoie ordered the man to take domestic violence and personal counselling as directed by his probation officer.

He cannot continue inflicting the same emotional scars he suffered as a child on his own children, Lavoie pointed out.