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A Penticton man who tried to claim a single instance of mistaken identity has been sentenced to five years in jail for having sex with a pre-teen multiple times.
Due to the fact that the case involved a minor and there is a publication ban on anything that might identify them, the reasons for the sentence refer to all the individuals involved only by initials, with the minor referred to in this article as Jane Doe.
According to the sentencing decision, which was published on Jan. 27, K.I.Z., now 28, was convicted of sexual interference of an individual under the age of 16 for a series of incidents over a seven-month span in 2021.
K.I.Z. had met Doe’s mother a couple of years earlier, and when he was looking for a place to stay, she had offered to rent him a spare room in her home. The two would later start a romantic relationship, with them sharing a room in the home.
At the time K.I.Z. moved in, Doe was 11. With Doe’s mother fully employed and regularly working night shifts, K.I.Z. started assisting Doe in looking after her younger siblings. The two would then spend time together after the other kids had been put to bed.
Doe testified that after her 12th birthday, she developed feelings for K.I.Z. Those feelings were not actively discouraged, the court found.
Over the next seven months in 2021, five specific incidents were recognized by the court, including three incidents of full intercourse that were primarily initiated by K.I.Z.
K.I.Z. never wore a condom in those three incidents, which led to Doe becoming concerned that she might have gotten pregnant, which led to confiding in a peer and thus the eventual involvement of the RCMP.
Justice Hardwick noted that there were no threats, violence, or other intimidating behaviour, but that K.I.Z. had used his position of trust and Doe’s affection for his own personal sexual gratification, with no dispute from K.I.Z. that he held the position of trust.
K.I.Z. also attempted to cover up the extent of his offences by trying to get Doe to work with him on lying to the police that the only sexual contact had been a “mistake” where K.I.Z. had thought Doe was her mother.
Doe was removed from her mother’s care by the Ministry of Children and Family Development following an investigation by the RCMP.
The presentencing report on K.I.Z. noted he had a significantly troubled childhood with an abusive father that left him diagnosed with PTSD, and that he had been the one to discover his mother after she had died of a drug overdose around 2020.
Justice Hardwick took issue with a portion of the psychological assessment for K.I.Z., as he had presented to the assessors that there had only been a single, mistaken incident of sexual contact.
While Hardwick rejected the portion of the report due to conflicting with the court’s decision over there being five incidents of sexual contact, the Justice accepted the report’s assessment of K.I.Z.’s risk of re-offending was in the low to moderate (average) range.
Since being taken into custody in October ahead of sentencing, after missing a court date due to not driving, K.I.Z. has been actively engaging in programs at the Okanagan Correctional Centre.
The Crown was seeking a jail sentence of six to seven years, while the defence for K.I.Z. sought a four-year sentence.
Justice Hardwick split the difference and sentenced K.I.Z. to 1,860 days less time served, which left him with 1,789 days to go.
“In my view, the sentence achieves the goals of denunciation and deterrence and reflects the gravity of your offence, and what I consider to be a high degree of moral blameworthiness, while also taking into account mitigating factors and other factors and circumstances I have described in these reasons, and are set out in greater detail in the PSR and the psychological assessment,” said Hardwick.
In addition to the sentence, Hardwick ordered K.I.Z. to be placed on the sexual offender registry for 20 years, to have no contact with Doe and to not be within two kilometres of her residence, school or workplace and to have no employment or volunteer position that would put him in a position of trust or authority with any minors.