Nanaimo man accused of sexually abusing two young sons awaits judge’s decision

They testified against their father via video at his trial which concluded on Friday, April 9 in provincial court in Nanaimo.

The accused allegedly squeezed his older son’s genitals when the boy was just three years old in 2013 in the living room of their Nanaimo home. His father also used allegedly used a wooden spoon to hit his genitals and buttocks.

In a second statement to police, the then 10-year-old said during the same occasion of abuse his nude father laid on top of his body and pinned him down on the floor.

Allegations lodged by the younger brother involved a single incident estimated to have occurred when he was between two and four-years-old.

Court was told his father allegedly pulled the boy’s pants down and touched his genitals. The father is also accused of attempting a penetrative act.

Both boys reported their father told them not to tell their mother.

“I don’t think squeezing a penis, or putting a penis up a child’s butt or rubbing a penis can be mistaken for any kind of innocent touching,” Crown prosecutor Caroline Narroway said during closing submissions.

Both second police statements made to police by the boys included expanded details of abuse.

Narroway said the boys’ allegations are not typical imaginations of children.

She said their accounts recalled physical and emotional pain, while peripheral details they noted such as the layout of the house where they no longer live checked out as accurate.

“There is a thread that runs through this trial. The children have never wavered from who did this to them, what happened to them, where it happened.” Narroway told judge Justine Saunders.

Narroway said the boys entered counseling over the next year after their first police interviews in 2018 and their mother rightly re-approached police when her sons had additional information of abuse to reveal.

She referenced case law stating the standard for assessing credibility of evidence by adults is not always appropriate in assessing young children’s credibility, adding children have different ways of explaining themselves.

“This is not a question of changing their evidence, this is a question of incremental or expanded disclosure…There can be no adverse inference drawn from the fact that they disclosed more later or didn’t disclose after the initial event,” Narroway said.

The father flatly denied the allegations to police and at trial. He is a registered sex offender however NanaimoNewsNOW is barred from naming him in order to protect the boys identities.

He is currently in jail for sex crimes, including abusing a child occurring several years after the current allegations.

His lawyer Peter Hertzberg took aim at the credibility and reliability of the complainants, particular the older brother.

During a final pitch to the court prior to a judgment, Hertzberg agreed that evolving disclosure is acceptable from children pointing the finger at a sexual offender.

He said changing perspectives of children doesn’t speak to their credibility.

However, Hertzberg questioned the logic of the older brother’s inclusion of him being naked on the floor with his nude father’s weight on top of him during his second police statement.

“I submit your honour will have to wrestle with not simply a further disclosure by a nine month more mature child, but materially different from the first disclosure,” Hertzberg said.

He said the boy used remarkably different language in his second police interview while describing the abuse.

The offender’s former partner also testified at the trial, stating she had no indication what had happened to her sons until they told her several years after the fact.

She told police during her youngest son’s second police interview that he wanted to kill himself.

Judge Saunders is expected to issue her decision in late May.

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On Twitter: @reporterholmes

by Ian Holmes

Nanaimo man accused of sexually abusing two young sons awaits judge’s decision

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