Tina* is 7 years old. She thinks she is a secret agent. At least that’s what his father led him to believe. If she reveals her secret, he will be caught by an “evil agency”. So she keeps her mouth shut. Until she was 14, when she recorded the horror. Her father, who sexually abused her hundreds of times, was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison on Tuesday.
Posted at 12:26 p.m.
“You have shown a lot of courage. To say: That’s enough, I condemn my father. Have courage, because it is a horror that lasted several years and involved a person you admire and love. That’s a lot to bear on the shoulders of a 14-year-old girl. »
This is the message that Judge Dannie Leblanc wanted to give the teenager at the end of an emotional hearing at the Longueuil courthouse. The 38-year-old Brossard resident, who was arrested several months ago, pleaded guilty to charges of incest and sexual contact. In order to protect her daughter, her identity cannot be revealed.
“It’s not your fault. It’s your father’s fault. You are not the villain who destroyed the family. That has to be understood,” Judge Leblanc insisted empathetically.
Tina confesses to the court: she is a “daddy’s girl”. Her father meant everything to her. Even today, despite the “horrible abuse,” she still describes her father as a “good father,” even one of the “best.” It is this admiration and this childlike naivety that the executioner cowardly abused.
Tina was only 7 years old when the attacks began. Her father makes her believe that she will have “superpowers” if she eats a “special ice cream that can’t melt.” Throughout her childhood, the father constantly forced his daughter to perform oral sex on him.
“At first everything was normal. “He made me believe I was a secret agent,” says Tina.
When she was 8 years old, the father sexually assaulted his daughter by penetration. First every three weeks, then more and more often, up to once or twice a week. He also lets his daughter shower with him, then dry her off and dress her. The attacks occurred in his mother’s absence.
“As I grew older, I realized that what was happening to me was not normal. I’ve been thinking for a long time about how to get out of this mess. “One thing held me back: the fear of losing my father,” Tina said in court.
At the age of 14, she found the strength to denounce her father. The teenager records another painful attack on her cell phone. The audio recording illustrates how the father blackmails his daughter by telling her that she does not deserve her privileges and objects.
“When I reported my father, I wanted to stop the abuse. “I wanted everything but to lose my father,” Tina repeated in court.
Crown prosecutor Bruno Des Lauriers pointed to numerous aggravating factors to justify the general suggestion of eight and a half years, including the “total” breach of trust, the victim’s young age and the repetition of the attacks. The prosecutor pointed to the defendant’s quick admission of guilt as a key mitigating circumstance.
“My client wanted to avoid having the plaintiff testify at all costs,” said Carlos Bolivar, the defense attorney.
“You have caused extremely significant harm to your daughter and your family,” the judge said to the defendant.
“They have completely restricted his learning of sexuality. She is a child, she is extremely innocent in everything. Only for your personal benefit. You made her believe, in some sort of game, that she was a secret agent and that she might face consequences. [Elle avait] “The pressure not to separate his family,” denounced the judge.
The man will be placed on the sex offenders register for 20 years.
*Fictitious name