CHILLIWACK - A B.C. judge convicted a Fraser Valley woman in a disturbing case of sexual assault for allowing her partner to repeatedly rape her child, but found her not guilty of a second charge because there’s no proof the child would suffer permanent damage from the sex assaults.

The woman, identified only as S.K., was a party to the disturbing sexual assaults and therefore guilty of sexual assault, according to a Feb. 27 written decision from Chilliwack Supreme Court judge William Grist.

The judgment describes potentially hundreds of incidents when the child was sexually assaulted and abused over the course of roughly a year before the child was three years old. The man filmed several encounters. The mother was aware of the abuse and may have even participated in it.

But S.K. was also charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life, a charge that requires the "health of that (child) to be endangered permanently."

Grist said the Crown admitted M.D.'s physical injuries have healed and are not likely to permanently damage her health. The Crown offered case law where a judge took judicial notice that a child as young as eight confirmed the potential for permanently-endangered health, but not an infant or toddler.

"The child was only two years of age during most of the abuse and it is not clear to me that a child of that age would retain memories of the abuse or psychological effects of a permanent nature," Grist wrote. "The Crown had the opportunity to present evidence relating to these matters and did not do so.”

The judge failed to convict on those grounds.

The man involved in the case was convicted of sexual assault and possession of child pornography in 2013, then testified against her.

"He said he began to ask to have the child with him in circumstances that indicated he wanted to use her for sexual stimulation," the decision reads. "He said that S.K. allowed him to have the young child for this purpose.”

The decision also shows that the Ministry for Children and Families was involved with the couple and the child in the midst of the year-long pattern of abuse. They were investigating the man for downloading child pornography to his phone while he lived in Prince George.

It says the man stopped his assaults during the investigation but later resumed. S.K. was made aware of the allegations. It’s not clear why the child was allowed to stay with the man.

It was S.K. who phoned 911 because she thought he was raping the child. When police arrived, she was asleep on the patio and the man was alone with the child in a bedroom when he was arrested.

Court bans on publication prevent the public from knowing what the man and woman were sentenced to.

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