Forest fire evacuee sentenced for sexual assault

A Williams Lake man was sentenced Wednesday to a further three years and two months in prison for a drug-fueled sexual assault of a fellow forest fire evacuee while the two were in a Prince George motel room this past summer.

In all, David Richard Morin, 24, was sentenced to five years in custody but received credit of nearly 23 months for time served prior to sentencing.

In March, Morin was found guilty of assault, assault causing bodily harm, uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm and unlawful confinement in relation to the incident over the night of July 28, 2017.

Morin and the victim had been boyfriend and girlfriend in Williams Lake.

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Morin had been evacuated to Prince George two weeks before she had arrived and when she showed up, she learned he had been seeing another woman in this city, according B.C. Supreme Court Justice George Macintosh’s review of testimony from a trial on the matter.

She booked the motel room and invited Morin over in the hope he would make up with her. But Morin was addicted to methamphetamine and had been smoking eight or nine times a day while in Prince George.

High on the drug, he and a friend showed up at the motel room where they smoked more meth. When Morin and the friend refused to go outside to smoke, she went into the bathroom and started crying. Morin, who admitted to becoming agitated and confused while on the drug, started hitting her and then ordered the friend to leave. The friend complied and, according to the woman’s testimony, Morin continued to hit her and then prevented her from escaping. He took away her cellphone and purse then smoked some more meth before apologizing to her.

Told she did not believe him, Morin lost his temper again and started choking her. He eventually relented and the woman was able to resume breathing while a bruise was left on her throat.

Morin then grabbed a hatchet and paced back and forth in the room while she laid curled up on the bed, wanting to escape but terrified of her attacker.

Morin claimed the sex that followed was consensual, but Macintosh found otherwise. He said Morin’s account was “unbelievable as seen in the context of that night,” noting Morin repeatedly slapped, punched and hit the woman, had threatened her with the hatchet and blocked her from leaving.

“Consensual sex would be almost a physical and psychological impossibility,” Macintosh said in reaching the guilty verdicts.

Sentencing was delayed so a pre-sentence report could be completed.