FILE PHOTO.

(BEN BULMER / iNFOnews.ca)

An Okanagan man who raped his six-year-old niece has will do seven years behind bars.

According to a Feb. 23 B.C. Provincial Court decision, the 65-year-old great uncle, referred to only as B.L.J. in court documents, regularly babysat his great-niece in the early 2000s when the abuse took place.

The court documents say B.L.J. first raped his niece in about 2003 when he lived in a trailer on the family's property in an undisclosed part of B.C. As the trial took place in Kelowna it's assumed B.L.J. is local to the Okanagan.

In one instance he raped his niece and then bought her candy afterwards.

A year or so later when the niece was staying at his home with a friend of hers, he sexually assaulted both of them.

The last time B.L.J. sexually assaulted his niece she was 11 years old. She pushed him away this time and started crying. He hugged her and told her that he loved her.

In 2019 the niece went to the police and her great-uncle was later charged with six counts of sexual assault and sexual interference.

Now in her mid-twenties, the niece said the sexual abuse destroyed the relationship with her family and she suffers from depression, anxiety and flashbacks.

"I spent most of my teen years drinking and doing drugs to forget, but when that wasn’t enough, I tried to kill myself. I have taken pills, slit my wrists and tried to hang myself. I was 12 years old when I had my first attempt. My last attempt was when I was 17," the niece said in a victim impact statement submitted to the court. "I still have a hard time when someone touches me, whether it’s a handshake, a pat on the shoulder, a hug or even intimacy with my partner. I lost my self-worth. I developed two eating disorders; anorexia and bulimia. I let myself get physically and mentally abused in relationships, I let myself get sexually assaulted, broken down and beat because I thought that was love."

The decision says B.L.J. has lost much of his family after being charged. He was living in a house on his mother's property but she kicked him out. His own children won't speak to him.

However his common-law partner of 14 years, as well as her son, have both stuck by him.

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B.L.J. continues to deny the offences and says it was orchestrated by his niece's brother.

A psychiatrist suggested this may be a coping mechanism.

At an earlier court appearance B.C. Provincial Court Judge Andrew Tam dismissed B.L.J.'s testimony saying he chose his answers to suit his own agenda.

"His answers in this area were generally vague and evasive," the judge said. "He was quite prepared to improvise them on the fly in order to support his case."

Some of the evidence involved the niece identifying B.L.J.'s penis, a task the judge said was clearly very traumatic for the victim.

When deciding on a fit sentence Judge Tam said it was "singularly depressing" how many similar reported cases there were.

"This feeling worsens with the realization that reported cases are necessarily a small subset of all cases that come before the courts, which are themselves but a small fraction of the true incidence of sexual offending against children in our communities," the judge said.

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Ultimately he sentenced B.L.J. to seven years in jail.

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