Closing submissions in Sauve trial

Defence says Crown’s case against Cambridge man mostly circumstantial

KITCHENER — Clark Sauve, 60, was in failing health. He used a wheelchair and an oxygen machine. He was told he’d be dead in five years. He tried to take his own life in the hospital.

Then, four days after Christmas 2014, Sauve hatched a plan to kill himself and his wife, the prosecution alleged in closing submissions on Wednesday at Sauve’s murder trial.

Sauve, a gun collector, was badly injured when he hit his head on a metal beam in 2011. Over the years, his condition worsened.

“The otherwise joyful holiday season presented Mr. Sauve with the reality that he was unable to provide financially for his wife, was dependent on others and that he could not be the grandfather he wanted to be to his grandchildren in his condition,” Crown prosecutor Cynthia Jennison said.

Sauve “could no longer justify living,” she said.

“He decided that his doting wife, who had put up with so much over the last few years, would be better off if she did not have to come home and find him dead and deal with a lonely life without him.”

Armed with an antique German pistol, Sauve allegedly shot his wife in the forehead and cheek while she slept.

OTTAWA — A former RCMP counterterrorism officer has been sentenced to 15 years behind bars for torturing and starving his young son in the basement of the family’s home.

After time already served, the 45-year-old faces 13 years and two months in prison.

The man, who cannot be identified, was convicted in November of two counts of aggravated assault, one each of sexual assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement, assault and failing to provide the necessaries of life, and a range of firearms offences.

Last month during his sentencing hearing, the man apologized for being “a monster” to his son, who was just 11 years old when he was found wandering his west Ottawa neighbourhood, emaciated and in search of water after escaping in February 2013.

Crown prosecutors had argued the man should receive a cumulative 23 years behind bars, less time served, for inflicting horrific abuse on his son.

Court was told the boy’s injuries were of the worst magnitude and such a sentence would be in step with what society demands. Those injuries included burns to his genitals from a barbecue lighter and scars around his ankles where the boy was shackled, sometimes naked, in the basement.