Vernon Supreme Court

(CHARLOTTE HELSTON / iNFOnews.ca)

A North Okanagan senior who repeatedly sexually abused his granddaughter while she was a teenager in his care will have to wait a little longer to find out his punishment.

At the Vernon courthouse today, Jan. 19, the frail-looking 76-year-old sat through an entire day of legal talk, unsurprisingly without any members of his family in the public gallery of the courtroom.

The court heard the disturbing details of the repeated sexual abuse and how he had raped his granddaughter and got her pregnant when she was 14 years old. The granddaughter had the child who is now a teenager.

Any details that could identify the victim are covered under a publication ban so details have been kept purposely vague and the grandfather's name is not being published.

“He was also her caregiver, he was more than a grandparent, he had parental… duties,” Crown prosecutor Margaret Cissell told the court.

The court heard the abuse took place for three years over a decade ago and carried on for one year after the granddaughter had given birth.

Cissell read emotional statements from the granddaughter's victim impact statement.

“I feel like I did something wrong even though I did not,” she said. “I became a teen mom.”

The granddaughter talked about how she planned to graduate high school and move on with her life, but instead, she became a mother and was bullied.

"He was an adult in my life who was supposed to protect me... his actions completely changed my life, if he had not done what he did to me I could have had a whole different life, but that was taken from me."

She dropped out of school, moved out of her home and started drinking heavily.

“I never told anyone the truth because no one would believe me,” the lawyer read from the statement.

The granddaughter said she knew the truth coming out would destroy her family.

The court heard how one day a suicide letter she wrote fell from her bag and a school counsellor picked it up.

“After the truth came out, my whole world fell apart,” the statement read.

The court heard how she’d had two more children while still young and the children had been taken into care. Years later, her three children are back with her.

The Crown prosecutor asked for between six to nine years in jail.

Defence lawyer Jonathan Avis asked for two years of house arrest or two years jail.

Avis reiterated the grandfather's poor health and that he’d had numerous heart attacks, two strokes and suffered from a variety of serious health conditions.

The defence lawyer pointed out the grandfather had pleaded guilty – saving his granddaughter the ordeal of a trial – and was a low risk to re-offend.

Avis said his client was a residential school survivor who had attended the notorious Kamloops Indian Residential School.

The defence lawyer said the grandfather had been abused, but not sexually, while at the school.

Later in life, he married twice and had multiple children. He now lives alone.

When asked he if had anything to say, the grandfather said he wasn’t good at apologizing or making excuses.

“I didn’t know it was going to affect so many people… in different ways," he said.

Following a day of legal arguments regarding an appropriate sentence, the case was adjourned and the grandfather will now have to wait a bit longer to find out his fate.

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