Sex-Crime Leniency

"I have not been the mother and grandmother I should have been because of the path of life which Mr. Smith's crimes have done.... Trust is not a part of my world and never has been since I was violated by Mr. Smith and then told I was a liar by the CAS workers when I went to them for help."

This now-almost 50-year-old woman suffers chronic sleep problems, eating disorders and nightmares. Little wonder she has nightmares. Her early life, at her most emotionally needy period of development as a human being, had been a dreadful nightmare of immense proportions. In and out of care with the Catholic Children's Aid Society since age 6, she had been given over to the care of various foster homes no fewer than twenty-two times in eight years.

A family known as the Smiths were approved as foster parents in 1978, and the-then 14-year-old girl had been rendered to their care. This foster home seemed different to her than the others had been. There were other children, the couple's own, but she had a bedroom all to herself, and what was even more wonderful to this lost child, she felt she was treated just the same as the other children, and she felt secure and safe.

Soon after moving into the Smith home, however, Mr. Smith was recovering from a car accident and spending considerable recuperative time at home. In the spring and summer of 1978 over a four-month period, he forced intercourse on the girl just as she turned fifteen years old. She had never experienced anything of that kind before, despite being in the care of other foster parents whose care of her was less than ideal.

She became pregnant, and the Catholic CAS removed her from the household to place the fifteen-year-old in a home for unwed mothers, without reporting anything to the police. They tried to persuade the girl to surrender her baby but she refused. And they refused to believe her when she informed them of what had happened. Mr. Smith had denied doing anything wrong, that he was the father of the baby.

The now-mature woman in 2010 went to Toronto Police. Mr. Smith was asked for a DNA sample, confirming he was the biological father of the now-grown daughter. During the trial that took place, Mr. Smith addressed the woman whom he had raped as a child, apologizing for his 'uncharacteristic' behaviour. His apology did not impress the woman, but it did the presiding judge.

Judge Jane Kelly expressed her opinion this way: "He regrets what he did 35 years ago and he has taken full responsibility for his actions." Full responsibility? For expressing regret? Regret that it came to his having to appear in court charged with a criminal act against a minor? Quoting Mr. Smith the judge said it was his hope "that now she has closure and will be able to move forward with her life", that he was "sincerely remorseful" and "thoroughly ashamed".

Pity he hadn't acted on decent impulses back then when he forced a child to a warped future of desolation. Later, the young woman had married, but an intimate relationship failed her. The knowledge of what had happened to her, she believed, soured her partner to her. And her life was irremediably altered from its potential for normalcy into one of misery and loneliness and regret, true regret.

Because Mr. Smith was perceived by the judge as a man of "good character", as "a contributing member of our society", leading a "productive life", except for an unfortunate "monstrous error in judgement", compassion led her to hand out a conditional sentence of house arrest for two years.