(BRENDAN KERGIN / iNFOnews.ca)

KAMLOOPS - A family member of a Southern Interior man convicted of sexually assaulting his teenage step daughter hysterically cried when she learned the man will spend the next three years behind bars.

The man and the victim cannot be identified due to a court-ordered publication ban. The man was convicted of sexual assault and sexual exploitation against his 16-year-old step daughter from an incident in February 2015.

The girl now resides with a relative because her mother is still in a relationship with the man. Court heard the man gave the teenager drinks while her mother wasn't home one evening, and the last thing she remembers is being on her phone and drinking before blacking out.

She woke up the next day to find her genitals were shaved, something her step father had brought up to her before. She also had physical injuries in the same area.

The girl found a used condom next to her bed and took the evidence before leaving her room. 

The victim attended the police station later in the day, where the girl turned over the condom she had found. DNA tests performed later on would identify two samples on the condom, one belonging to the girl and the other belonging to her step father.

"It's clear that this offence has had a deep, traumatic impact on (the victim)," Crown prosecutor Evan Goulet said. "The Crown says this is clearly a serious sexual assault."

He also noted that the victim no longer has a relationship with her mother. Goulet submitted that a four-year sentence would be appropriate, and any sentence less than that would be unfit. 

The step father denies the circumstances of the offence, and his lawyer Genevieve Eliany attributed his denial to some form of not remembering the incident. Eliany asked for a two-year jail sentence for her client.

Kamloops Supreme Court judge Ian Meiklem asked Eliany why the mother was still in a relationship with the man. Eliany didn't have a concrete answer, but said everyone who knows the man couldn't believe he would do this. She also said the mother wanted hard proof.

Meiklem, who convicted the man of both charges earlier this year, decided on a sentence of three years, with conditions including the man register as a sex offender, not be in the presence of someone under 16 unless an adult over 25 is present, and not to contact the victim while in custody.

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