Mountie sentenced to 15 years for starving, torturing 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 Superior 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-themed interrogations, 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.