A father who had just arrived in Quebec with his family admitted to having sexually assaulted his own daughter on several occasions in a Montreal hotel. If he regrets his actions, the man blames it on his “very high” sexual urges, and even on a “demonic spirit”.
Head bowed, eyes glued to the ground, the 37-year-old man seems choked with shame in the dock. “Yes,” he finally whispers, with great difficulty, in order to acknowledge his guilt. “My client is very ashamed,” said his lawyer, Me Marie-Hélène Giroux.
The man pleaded guilty to one count of incest last week at the Montreal courthouse. He initially faced charges of sexual exploitation, production of child pornography and making sexually explicit material available to a child.
The accused cannot be identified to protect the identity of the victim, a 16-year-old girl.
Originally from a country in West Africa, the man and his family arrived in Montreal in May or June 2022 as refugees. They were then hosted by the government in a hotel in the metropolis.
It was the mother of the victim who made the terrible discovery in mid-June while listening by chance to a phone call between the father and his daughter. “Why can’t we do it again?” said the father then. The mother filed a complaint with the police.
“It’s not clear how many times this has happened in Canada. It’s at least once, but the evidence tends to show that it happened a few times. But [the victim] mentions that it happened often when they were in Mexico,” said Crown Attorney Jérôme Laflamme, insisting that this was not an “isolated event”.
After his arrest, the man confessed everything to the police. He repeated that he had a “very high sexual drive”. Thus, he had “no choice”, in his words.
“He tells the police that he needs to have sex, that it’s hard to control himself. He felt like a demonic spirit had taken over,” the prosecutor said.
“I’m sorry,” the man breathed at the end of the hearing.
The case will return to court in June for sentencing. He remains in detention until then.