2 total
The court granted temporary care and custody to the mother and ordered the father to produce his criminal and therapeutic records.
A child protection society sought an order placing two children in the temporary care and custody of their mother subject to society supervision, with the father to have access at the society's discretion.
The father opposed the motion and sought the children be returned to both parents on a week-on, week-off basis.
The court found reasonable grounds to believe the children faced risk of sexual and emotional harm based on evidence of sexually inappropriate behaviour by both parents, the father's history of sexual violence convictions in Utah, allegations of domestic violence, and the father's lack of insight into protection concerns.
The court granted the society's motion, placing the children with the mother under supervision and ordering the father's access remain discretionary pending full disclosure of his criminal and therapeutic records.
Six years is not the ceiling for aggravated child sexual abuse sentencing.
The appellant appealed sentence following convictions for multiple sexual offences committed against four very young boys over several years while occupying positions of trust.
The court rejected the submission that a six-year sentence in an earlier authority represented the high-water mark for prolonged child sexual abuse cases.
It held that where an adult in a position of trust regularly abuses young children over a substantial period, mid to upper single-digit penitentiary terms are generally appropriate, and where the abuse includes intercourse, violence, threats, or extortion, upper single-digit to low double-digit terms will generally be fit.
Given the repeated anal intercourse, threats, extortion, physical violence, grooming, and devastating victim impact, the sentence imposed was at the lower end of the appropriate range.
Leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the sentence appeal was dismissed.
