A soldier who seduced a 13-year-old girl on social media before sexually abusing her should face three and a half years in prison, while the victim made a brave statement and recalled the difficulties of getting back up after such a crime.
• Also read – Arrested in the middle of a vaccination campaign: This soldier is arrested for sex crimes against a 13-year-old girl
• Also read – Sexual assault: arrested in the middle of the vaccination campaign
“I spent almost a year alone and isolated, I felt alone in the world, I lost friends who judged me when it shouldn’t be up to me to explain myself,” wrote Alexandre’s victim Matheussen in a letter was read out this Thursday at the Montreal Courthouse.
Alexandre Matheussen, a soldier who committed sex crimes against a 13-year-old girl, upon his arrival at the Montreal courthouse on Thursday, October 12, 2023. PHOTO MICHAËL NGUYEN Photo Michaël Nguyen
The 22-year-old soldier sat in the courtroom with a sports bag containing his personal belongings and listened carefully to the words of the teenager who had trusted him in 2020. As a soldier, he had no problem presenting himself in a good light. He met the teenager on Snapchat.
“He did everything he could to make me realize he was a good guy,” the victim wrote in his letter.
But that was not the case. Because the innocent conversations quickly became more explicit and then downright sexual. But Matheussen wanted more, so he went to meet the teenager and even introduced himself to her mother. He then tried to make contact, even if the teenager didn’t want to.
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Arrested during the operation
But by persisting, he eventually got what he wanted in subsequent meetings.
“He was persistent, he wanted full relationships even when she said no,” the Crown said, adding that Matheussen once pulled the girl’s hair.
The latter also claims that the soldier gave her a sexually transmitted infection. She eventually filed a police report, which led to the soldier’s arrest at a COVID-19 vaccination center where he was stationed. He has since been discharged and is expected to be discharged from the Canadian Armed Forces soon.
But if the sentence proposed by both the Crown and defense is to help turn the tide for the teenager, the fact remains that the last few years have been difficult for her.
The defendant Alexandre Matheussen on Monday, May 8, 2023, at the Montreal courthouse. On his left we see the Crown Prosecutor Me Jérôme Laflamme and on his right his lawyer Me Michael Morena. MARTIN ALARIE / JOURNAL DE MONTREAL
Courageous testimony
Because the teenager not only had to endure the stares of others who judged her, even if she was the victim in the case, but also had to struggle with academic difficulties and deal with her trauma.
“I haven’t eaten anything or almost nothing for three months,” she wrote in her letter. I pretended nothing was happening, but I was suffering. »
What followed was a fear of men and an aversion to certain sexual acts that reminded him of Mattheusen. All this while she replayed the events in her head, telling herself that she should have acted differently. But despite everything, the teenager keeps her head held high.
“What he did to me does not define me and will never define me,” she concluded.
Matheussen, for his part, will know in two weeks whether Judge Pierre Labelle will accept the proposed sentence of three and a half years. Because Me Jérôme Laflamme of the Crown acknowledged that he could have asked for a greater sentence given the soldier’s limited introspection.
Defense attorney Michael Morena, in turn, noted that his client had a “certain awareness” and that “the passage of time had a deterrent effect,” even if the risk of relapse was still high.
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