Man sentenced for sexually assaulting underage girls

A Port Coquitlam man who supplied three underage girls with drugs and alcohol then sexually assaulted them has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

Kevin Craig Thomas was 37 when he began socializing with a group of young people aged 12 to 15 who were doing poorly in school and abusing drugs and alcohol.

At a weekend party at the home of another drug dealer, Thomas introduced one of his victims to crystal methamphetamines before sexually assaulting her.

On another occasion, Thomas had sexual intercourse with an intoxicated 15-year-old girl in a shed at his mother-in-law’s home.

“It was not a classic case of abuse of trust but clearly Mr. Thomas was many years senior to the young, vulnerable teens and used drugs and alcohol to lessen their defences to his unwanted conduct,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Greyell said in imposing sentence.

In addition to being convicted of the sex offences, Thomas was found guilty of two counts of uttering threats and one count of possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

One of the victims told a probation officer she believed Thomas to be a “sick man” and wished him to remain in jail for a long time.

The accused’s lawyer told the court the offences committed by his client, which dated back to April 2014, occurred around the time Thomas’s life hit “rock bottom.”

Thomas, a father of five who came to Canada from Jamaica in 2005 and has permanent resident status, was estranged from his wife and children after becoming addicted to drugs and was living on the streets for a time.

The offender, who lost his job in construction, became despondent and depressed, his peer group becoming other drug dealers. He found comfort socializing with young people but the boundaries soon became blurred, court heard.

The judge noted that regrettably, Thomas did not fully participate in a pre-sentence report, choosing not to talk about his psychiatric history while acknowledging he’d been admitted to Royal Columbian Hospital and attempted suicide four or five times.

Greyell agreed with the Crown’s submission that in all of the circumstances, an appropriate sentence would be four and a half years in prison. After receiving credit for pre-sentence custody, Thomas will have one year and two months of jail time left to serve.

Because he received a sentence of longer than six months in jail, Thomas will lose any right to appeal a deportation order.