Sex Assaults Were In Girl's Best Interest..CHARITY Begins .?

[Daanyeer]

Sex Assaults Were In Girl's Best Interest, Man Tells Judge


Source: www.guelphmercury.com
July 5, 2006 Author: DIANNE WOOD

A man convicted of having sex with his stepdaughter and taking pornographic pictures of her said yesterday that he gave the girl what she wanted so she wouldn't meet men on the Internet for sex.

In a bizarre explanation to a judge, the 47-year-old Kitchener man basically said he gave his 13-year-old stepdaughter all the sex she wanted in hopes that she wouldn't look for it in more dangerous places.

"I didn't want to get a phone call that she'd snuck out at night . . . and have to identify her in the morning,'' he said in Kitchener's Ontario Court.

He said his stepdaughter was "obsessed about becoming a playboy bunny or a stripper or porn star. I was so scared when I (saw) her on the Internet soliciting older people to pick her up in their car for sex,'' he said.

"I tried to fulfil what she was thinking,'' he added as the girl and her mother listened in the courtroom. His stepdaughter is now 14.

The man said he hoped she would "feel bad, feel used.'' Better she feel that way with him than "someone on the street,'' he said.

He pleaded guilty to making and distributing child pornography and touching his stepdaughter with his penis for a sexual purpose last year. He will be sentenced on Aug 2.

Crown prosecutor Andre Rajna has asked for a prison sentence of six to eight years. Defence lawyer Steve Gehl argued for a four-year term.

The man is not being named to protect the identity of his stepdaughter. He'd been living with the girl's mother in Kitchener for seven years when the sex started.

Court heard that both he and the girl's mother were concerned about her dating relationship with a 15-year-old boy.

To keep closer tabs on her, they decided her stepfather would home-school her.

She was having trouble sleeping and her father gave her some of his percocets, a medication he took for back pain. They made her drowsy.

While under the influence of the drug, court heard he sometimes sexually assaulted her. Two videos showed him having sex with her while she was snoring. On mornings after taking the small, white pills, she wouldn't remember anything.

Her stepfather told her she could make money by posing for photographs he would post on a website. Six or seven times, she posed in various stages of undress. Her mother was sleeping at the time.

The images were downloaded to a computer and posted on a website with restricted access. Court heard the man transmitted them from his home computer to his work computer. He was later fired from his job.

In return for posing for the photos, the father bought clothes for his daughter. Their relationship became sexual after a "heartfelt'' talk about what was going on in her life, court heard.

Sexual intercourse began in March 2005 and ended seven months later.

Her father also suggested they make a video with his stepdaughter performing oral sex on him. He downloaded it to his computer. As payment, his daughter got a digital camera.

She finally told a friend what was going on last October because she was "feeling things had gotten too weird and she didn't like the secrets being kept from her mother,'' the Crown told Justice Gary Hearn.

Her friend told his parents who called police.

As well as the images of his stepdaughter, police seized at least 538 images of child pornography and 75 videos of child pornography involving other children. The children were mainly aged six to 12, but some were two to four years old.

The man told police he had the pictures "to find out what was wrong about me.''

When arrested, he told police that his stepdaughter had manipulated him. She used sex to get what she wanted, then turned him in when he refused to give her more money and items, he said.

In a tearful statement to the judge, he said his stepdaughter felt the only thing she had to offer was her body. But he got to know her while home-schooling, and discovered, "She's intelligent, she's humorous.

"What I did was wrong,'' he said before adding that he had always tried to encourage her.

"I love her very much.''

Rajna told the judge there was a "small kernel of truth'' in what the man said about his stepdaughter that "got blown up'' in his mind.

"She's a teenager. Did she sneak out from time to time? Probably,'' Rajna said outside court. "Did she talk to people on the Internet? Probably. He puts two and two together.''