Stepdad jailed four years for molesting teen girl

A 13-year-old girl’s world essentially fell apart after her mother refused to believe her stepfather was molesting her, court heard Friday.

“She has done nothing wrong,” assistant Crown attorney Holly Nickel said of the young victim. “The result for her was the fabric of her life was dismantled in a day.”

On the day she disclosed the abuse, which had occurred on a number of occasions over the course of several months, she and her younger siblings were removed from their St. Catharines home.

The girl is now a ward of Family and Children’s Services of Niagara, and has limited contact with her siblings.

Her 38-year-old stepfather was convicted of sexually touching a person under the age of 16 following an 11-day trial last November in Superior Court of Justice in St. Catharines. The jury deliberated for less than two hours before returning with the guilty verdict.

On Friday, Judge Richard Lococo sentenced the defendant, who cannot be identified to protect the identity of the victim, to four years behind bars.

In a victim impact statement submitted to the court, the victim, now 17, said the betrayal she felt after her mother refused to believe her was indescribable.

“She was the first person in the world I should have been able to trust.”

The teen initially remained silent about the abuse, court was told, because her stepfather said her siblings would be taken away if she told anyone what was happening.

Nickel told the judge it was as if the teen was “held hostage by her situation,” because despite her mother not caring about her and her stepfather using her as a sexual plaything, she was prepared to endure the man’s sexual advances in order to stay with her brother and sister.

“If one looks at this landscape, one can see how truly vulnerable (the victim) was,” Nickel said before asking the judge to consider a jail term in the four to fiveyear range.

“What a horrible home life she must have had.”

Court heard the victim’s 36-year- old mother was convicted in 2012 of invitation to sexual touching, after she contacted the teen’s friend, then 15, and asked if she’d be interested in having a “threesome” with her and her husband.

In that case, the woman spent a short time in jail and was placed on probation for two years.

Defence counsel Geoff Hadfield told court his client, a firsttime offender, maintains his innocence.

“From the outset of the investigation … to today, he denies his guilt,” he said.

And while a jury found him guilty, Hadfield said the man “does not have to adopt that finding as his own.”

The victim, meanwhile, spoke of how she’s trying to move forward with her life after attending four different schools, two foster homes and a group home.

Despite suffering nightmares, depression and anxiety attacks, she said she’s determined to make “better choices than my mother did.”

The defendant and the mother remain a couple.