(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)

A Kamloops man serving time for sexually assaulting his niece had his sentence increased after a ruling by the province's highest court.

Nihal Ananda Maligaspie was sentenced in June to three-and-a-half years in prison, but prosecutors looked to the BC Court of Appeal to lock him away for two more years.

The court agreed and ordered Maligaspie be sentenced to five-and-a-half years, according to a Dec. 5 decision.

Maligaspie was facing two counts of sexual assault, convicted by a jury in 2022. He was 72 years old when a judge sent him to prison, but the assaults began two decades earlier.

He helped his niece when she emigrated from Sri Lanka in 2001, acting as her sponsor. She was 20 years old at the time.

She lived at Maligaspie's home, with his wife and kids, while she went to university. They had a sexual relationship that spanned several years. The Crown proved three "discrete" sexual assaults, but the relationship was also characterized as a "highly inappropriate but consensual affair," according to the appeal decision.

In the second sexual assault charge, Maligaspie was found to have entered her room in one specific instance and raped her while she was in and out of consciousness. She had taken multiple medications. Before leaving the room, he found a suicide note she wrote.

He didn't seek medical assistance for her, according to the decision.

The Crown sought a total eight-year sentence for the two charges, while his defence proposed a two-year sentence.

The BC Supreme Court ruling landed him in prison for three-and-a-half years, but the Court of Appeal found the judge gave "insufficient weight to deterrence and denunciation," adding another two years to his total sentence.

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