COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO
RE: HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN (Respondent) – and – WILLIAM YOUNG (Appellant)
BEFORE: CATZMAN, DOHERTY and LASKIN JJ.A.
COUNSEL: Mary-Ellen Hurman for the respondent
Jeffrey A. House for the appellant
HEARD: December 11, 2003
RELEASED ORALLY: December 11, 2003
On appeal from the sentence imposed by Justice Lynn Ratushny of the Superior Court of Justice on December 1, 1999.
E N D O R S E M E N T
1The trial judge imposed a total sentence of eleven years and also gave the appellant credit of two years for pre-trial custody of seventeen months. In our view, there is no error of principle in the sentence imposed and it is not demonstrably unfit.
2The appellant abused and terrorized his common law spouse on an almost daily basis for almost two years. The daily abuse was punctuated by several specific events of unspeakable cruelty and horror. These included throwing the victim from the second floor balcony; placing the victim in a freezer while she was naked and sitting on the freezer so she could not escape; and sexually abusing the victim in a series of sadistic and dehumanizing acts that went on over many hours.
1The impact on the victim can hardly be overstated. She was so afraid of the appellant that it took her years to go the police with her allegations despite the fact that the appellant was in the penitentiary serving a sentence on another charge. The victim will live in fear for the rest of either her life or the appellant’s life.
2The trial judge said that there were no mitigating factors. We agree. The appellant has a terrible criminal record. He is an alcoholic who is prone to acts of violence while intoxicated. He has taken no steps to deal with his problem and indeed, the appellant appears to have no real appreciation of the danger he poses when drinking.
3There is evidence that he is in a relationship at the present, and to date there is no evidence that the relationship is abusive. In our view, that is not a mitigating factor. The relationship has not been a long one and the appellant has spent a considerable part of that relationship in jail. In any event, the fact that there is as yet no evidence that the appellant is abusing his latest partner, pales beside his history of domestic abuse which includes the abuse not only of this victim but of his previous domestic partner.
4The trial judge could have given slightly more credit than she did for the pre-trial incarceration. We note that two months of the pre-trial incarceration was spent in a hospital setting. However, in our view, even if she had given perhaps five or six months more credit, the sentence of eleven years in addition to the pre-trial incarceration was entirely appropriate.
5The appeal is dismissed.
“M.A. Catzman J.A.”
“D.H. Doherty J.A.”
“J.I. Laskin J.A.”
