Jail for St. Catharines man who sexually assaulted woman at party

A St. Catharines man who sexually assaulted a woman he had just met at a house party has been sentenced to four years behind bars.

Dalien Ilunga’s lawyer had argued the sexual activity was consensual, adding the victim didn’t object when his client said he liked her and that she gave him her phone number earlier in the evening.

“Perhaps, the defendant felt emboldened by the fact that the victim provided him with her telephone number and did not immediately leave when he mouthed the words, ‘I like you,’” Judge Joseph De Filippis said in Ontario Court of Justice.

“What is clear is that he had no qualm about forcing a stranger into his bedroom to have unprotected sexual intercourse, without her consent.”

The judge ruled four years was a fit sentence. With credit for the time Ilunga spent in custody pending trial — he has been in custody since his arrest for sexual assault in May 2019 — he must now serve an additional 879 days. Were it not for the COVID-19 pandemic, De Filippis said, he would have sentenced the man to five years, as the Crown had requested.

He noted the Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled the impact of the pandemic represents a collateral consequence that may be considered at sentencing, although not to the point of reducing a sentence beyond what would otherwise be appropriate in the circumstances.

“The court’s primary duty in sentencing is protection of the public,” De Filippis said.

“This duty is fulfilled by a consideration of statutory and common law principles. If jail can be avoided or minimized, it should be, because of what the medical experts have told us about the pandemic.

“However, at the end of the day public safety cannot be sacrificed on the altar of COVID-19.”

On May 5, 2019, court heard, the 37-year-old defendant, who has a prior conviction for sexual assault, forced the young woman into his bedroom during a party. The victim struggled but was unable to fend off her attacker. She was sexually assaulted over a five-minute period. The assault ended after the victim’s friend opened the bedroom door.

At trial Ilunga, a father of three, maintained his innocence, claiming the sexual act was consensual.

The judge ruled the Crown had met its burden of proof and said the victim’s testimony was “credible and reliable and had not been undermined in crossexamination.”