Suicidal child abuser a manipulator to the end
TORONTO — A child abuser who hanged himself on the day of his sentencing was making his last bid to manipulate the justice system and evade prison, QMI Agency has learned.
A sudden death report states that Mac Bool Hassan left a note for a friend in his neighbourhood who arrived at Hassan's home June 11 to drive him to the courthouse for sentencing.
But the neighbour missed seeing the note the first time she walked into his unlocked home at 9:20 a.m. She may be the last person Hassan spoke to as they discussed the pickup plans the night before.
She repeatedly called out his name, but got no answer so she went home.
She saw the note on a return trip, but she cannot read English, so she took the note home where her daughter informed her that it said: "I'm in the basement. You can have the Bibles."
When the woman and her daughter arrived at Hassan's home they discovered him, with a TV cable wrapped around his neck, hanging from the basement ceiling duct. His feet were only six to eight inches off the floor but it was too late to save him.
They phoned police by 9:50 a.m. "on the attempt suicide call" and a dispatcher instructed them to cut him down. The daughter took a knife downstairs but "when she saw him, she froze and ran upstairs," the police report indicated.
Hassan's body was cold but not in a state of rigor mortis, indicating he may have attempted to time his jump from a plastic chair so that the friend would find him shortly afterwards.
Police found that Hassan had left a small amount of cash for his son and a book on his coffee table, entitled The Innocent Man, a lottery ticket for his neighbour and a computer for her daughter.
"He was manipulative right to the very end," said one person involved in the troubling case. "He tried to stall this case out for as long as possible and he knew he was going to prison."
An empty whisky bottle and a marijuana cigarette were found in his messy living room. Police ruled it was "not a suspicious death."
Hassan, who was on bail for five years and delayed his trial by firing and hiring lawyers, was facing a penitentiary sentence for inflicting eight years of sexual and physical torture upon his "daughter."
Hassan, 50, who was convicted of 13 criminal offences in March, expressed fears of going to prison. He was ostracized from his community.
Despite his criminal record and drug problems, the Children's Aid Society entrusted him with the care of the twoyear-old girl in 1994 as he already had custody of her half-brother. She was abused from the time she was seven until she ran away as a 15 year old in 2008.