Calgary domestic abuser whose victim had to be rescued by police handed six-year sentence
Turning his girlfriend into a “prisoner in her own home” through two months of physical and psychological abuse has landed a Calgary man a six-year prison sentence.
But no term could give comfort to the victim and her parents, who remain fearful of the offender.
“He knows where I live and I fear not only for the safety of my daughter, but myself and my husband,” the victim’s mother said in a victim impact statement read in court Monday.
The mother called the offender “a lying psychopathic monster.”
Because the boyfriend initially faced sex charges, there is a publication ban on the identity of the complainant, which means his name is prohibited from being published.
The 35-year-old pleaded guilty last Thursday to six charges, including aggravated assault and unlawful confinement in connection with incidents which occurred at the victim’s Bridgeland condo between Christmas 2023, and Feb. 22, 2024.
On that latter date police had to rescue the woman from her abuser by using a battering ram to break down her door after the offender forced her to remain silent when officers arrived on a check on welfare call.
Justice Lloyd Robertson, in accepting a joint submission from Crown prosecutor Rose Greenwood and defence counsel Kirsten Lancee, noted the boyfriend ignored police for more than 20 minutes before the dangerous take-down occurred.
The police entrance was captured on an officer’s body worn camera and played in court last week.
In the video, the victim is seen emerging from the apartment wearing sunglasses to shield her black eyes.
“He wants me to say everything’s OK,” the woman told her rescuers.
Greenwood, reading from a statement of agreed facts, said the woman’s body was covered in bruises and she had multiple fractures, including nine broke ribs.
In supporting the proposed six-year term, Lancee said the relationship between the victim and her client “became toxic very fast” primarily because the two were consuming methamphetamine during the time period.
She said the offender did not even know the severity of the injuries he inflicted until she showed him pictures of the victim’s wounds.
Before Robertson sentenced him, the boyfriend read a prepared statement he had hoped to give to the victim, who did not attend court.
“I’m truly sorry for hurting you emotionally and physically,” he said.
“What I did in most regards was indefensible.”
Robertson noted the offender “subjected her to intense mental abuse,” and “stood as a malevolent gatekeeper for all of her interactions with others.”
“(She) was a prisoner in her own home.”
With credit for time already spent on remand, the offender will have a little less than four years left to serve.
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