The Crown has asked that a St-Laurent borough resident receive an overall 17-year sentence for his attempt to strangle an 11-year-old girl to death, in part because the victim fears he will seek revenge against her in the future.
On Jan. 19, the man was convicted on one count of attempted murder, but was acquitted of sexual assault, following a lengthy and complicated trial. The Crown’s theory all along was that the man, now 45, tried to kill the girl to cover up sexual abuse carried out while she was unconscious. The girl considered the man to be like an uncle to her. She testified during the trial that the man was looking after her in her home on May 26, 2013, while her mother was out.
She said that she was watching television with the man when he suddenly asked questions about a necklace she was wearing. During that conversation, the girl said, the man grabbed her skipping rope and started strangling her with it. As she struggled for breath, she fell to the floor and he climbed on top of her before she blacked out. Her rope was still wrapped around her neck when she awoke in an alley. She found help at a friend’s house nearby and her mother was contacted. The 45-year-old, who was involved in a relationship the mother was trying to keep secret, was arrested hours later riding a city bus with his immigration documents on him. The man’s name cannot be published because it might identify the victim.
On May 26, 2013, an 11-year-old girl woke up lying in an alley near her home in Montreal’s St-Laurent borough, a skipping rope around her neck. She had blood on her nose and hands and her clothing was torn. The girl identified the attacker as a man she considered an uncle.
The fact that the man appeared to be preparing to flee Canada at the moment of his arrest was one of the aggravating factors prosecutor Pierre Olivier Bolduc listed during a sentence hearing on Monday at the Montreal courthouse. The prosecutor argued the case against the 45-year-old falls within the most severe category when it comes to sentencing an offender for attempted murder in Canada. The category calls for sentences of 15 years and more when an attempted murder involves extreme brutality and premeditation.
Bolduc provided Quebec Court Judge Silvie Kovacevich with a statement from the victim who wrote that returning to elementary school after she was strangled was difficult. Her friends were aware of what had happened to her and would ask her questions about it while they ate lunch together.
“I threw away all the stuffed animals I had because they reminded me of what happened,” she wrote. “To finish my school year I had to pass by the area (where she was left for dead) every day.
“I fear that he wants to take revenge when he gets out of prison. I fear what that could bring.”
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Both the Crown and defence lawyer Sharon Sandiford agree the man has served the equivalent of more than 5 years and nine months since the day of his arrest. Each day spent behind bars counts as a day and a half while an accused awaits his trial. But that was the only thing Sandiford and Bolduc agreed on during the hearing.
While Bolduc recommended the man be left with a prison term of more than 11 years, starting from the day he is sentenced, Sandiford asked that her client be left with a 39-month sentence.
Kovacevich is expected to make her decision on the sentence in May.
