Sexual Assault

R v Hajar (ABCA): Starting point sentence for “major” sexual interference

By Damian Rogers|2017-09-28T23:41:22-06:0003/10/2016|Sexual Assault, Sexual Interference|

In 2008, Canada's Parliament increased the age of sexual consent from 14 years of age to 16 years of age (with a close-in-age exception that allows for non-criminal sexual contact between children and by children with adults who are similar to their age). This change resulted in widely varying sentences for adults that engaged in sexual activity with children between 14 and 15 years old - an age at which they had previously been legally capable of consenting to sexual activity, provided it was outside of exploitative relationships. In R v Hajar (2016 ABCA 222), the Alberta Court of Appeal considered the sentencing considerations that should apply when adults commit the offence of sexual interference with children under 16 years of age, in circumstances where the child was an ostensibly willing participant - circumstances that some courts have previously referred to as "de facto consent". The case establishes a starting point sentence for major sexual interference, such as intercourse, fellatio and cunnilingus. The facts in Hajar can be briefly stated. Mr. Hajar, a 20 year old man at the time of [...]

R v Kunath: 10 year sentence for two aggravated sexual assaults on infant upheld

In R. v. Kunath, 2013 ABCA 372, the Alberta Court of Appeal upheld a 10 year sentence imposed after a guilty plea to two counts of aggravated sexual assault committed against a six week old infant. The victim was the child of the accused's girlfriend. The assaults were extensive and disturbing, involving injuries to the penis and anus of the child, as well as burns likely inflicted by a lighter to the feet of the child. The Alberta Court of Appeal had signalled, beginning in the case of R. v. Nickel, 2012 ABCA 158 (a case involving serious assaults against an infant which was not sexual in nature), that sentences for assaults on minors required an adjustment towards sentences with a greater emphasis on deterrence and denunciation by way of lengthier jail terms. The Court of Appeal noted that that case had appropriately been considered by the sentencing judge. The sentencing judge found in Kunath that the gravity of the offences was "exceedingly serious" and the harm to the victim and society as a whole was "extreme". [...]