Teenage boy pleads guilty to rape of six-year-old girl
Author: Barbara Brown, The Hamilton Spectator
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A 15-year-old boy will have his name placed on Canada's sex offender registry for 20 years after admitting that he raped the six-year-old daughter of a family friend on four or five occasions.

Ontario Court Justice Norman Bennett found the youth, who pleaded guilty to sexual assault and sexual interference, poses a danger to the public and will need intensive counselling before he can be reintegrated into a normal school and society.

Bennett sentenced the youth, who was 14 at the time of the assaults, to six months of secure custody and three months of open custody to be followed by two years of probation. He ordered the boy to provide a sample of his blood to Hamilton police so that it can be analyzed and entered into the national DNA data bank, which is reserved for the country's more violent criminals and sex offenders.

The girl suffered some internal injuries as a result of being sexually assaulted on four or five occasions between Jan. 15 and March 29, 2007. But the judge predicted it was her emotional wounds that would take longest to heal.

"This is such serious and abnormal behaviour -- it's beyond the pale of morality," said Bennett. "I personally cannot understand how a (14-year-old) boy would take advantage of this defenceless child ... It was a despicable and immoral act perpetrated on a very young person who suffered not only physical harm, but emotional harm."

The boy cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

His lawyer, Derek Martin, said the youth was himself a victim of sexual abuse by the age of 11. A former neighbour and friend of his father was convicted of sexually assaulting him and is awaiting sentencing.

Martin said the boy has been on strict terms of bail for the past year, which kept him from returning to school. He urged a non-custodial sentence and the maximum probation so his client could get counselling and begin to upgrade his Grade 7 education.

But assistant Crown attorney Carey Lee argued that some crimes are so reprehensible they demand a term in jail. He cited the tender age of the victim, the fact she suffered internal injuries and would require years of psychological counselling as aggravating features of the crime.

"It is perhaps trite to say that it's going to take a very long time for her to get over this," Lee said.

The convicted boy and his mother were staying in the girl's family home at the time of the assaults. One day, she disclosed in a child's terminology what had been going on in her bedroom when she and the boy were alone.

Her grandmother said on some days the girl appears remarkably resilient and the family is hopeful she can put the trauma behind her. Other times, she is nervous and doesn't want to be touched.

"Gram," the girl asked recently, "how would (the boy) know how to do all those bad things to me?"

bbrown@thespec.com

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