A man from Inuvik is to be sentenced in a Yellowknife court on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to hitting a woman in the face and later the same night, sexually assaulting that woman’s mother.
CKLB is not using the 30-year-old man’s name in order to protect the names of his victims.
Court heard after drinking with the mother and her daughter at the mother’s home in Inuvik back in March of 2018 he and the daughter, his girlfriend at the time, went to his residence.
They then got into an argument over infidelity and he hit her in the face, giving her a black eye.
Court heard that he then went to back to the victim’s mother’s home where she awoke to him sexually assaulting her.
She chased him from her house with a bat and he was charged with both offences three days later.
The Crown has asked for a sentence of two and a half to three and a half years in custody, while the man’s lawyer, Peter Harte, called for a two-year sentence which, taking into account his time in pre-sentence custody, would amount to one further year in jail.
The lawyer says his client suffers from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and had a brutal childhood.
The offender told his lawyer that he was neglected as a child, and at Christmas as a boy, his mother would give him marijuana and tell him to “get lost.”
The lawyer says his client has no recollection of the events on the night in question due to his level of intoxication at the time.
The lawyer also contends that his client has not received enough substance abuse help while incarcerated at the North Slave Correctional Complex (NSCC).
He says that’s despite an auditor general’s 2015 report that said the territorial government was not offering enough programming help at the correctional facility.
CKLB asked the justice department about that but have yet to hear back.
Neither victim was in the Yellowknife court for the sentencing hearing.
