OSOYOOS TIMES-January 6, 2010
By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times
A 29-year-old man received an 18-month conditional sentence on Dec. 29 for having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old Osoyoos girl.
The man, who cannot be identified to protect the identity of the victim, pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault in Penticton provincial court on Sept. 21 stemming from a police response to a domestic dispute that took place on May 31 and June 1, 2009.
Police said they responded to a call of a disturbance at an Osoyoos residence that came in just before midnight on May 31.
When they arrived, police found that the mother of the victim had walked in on two men with her two daughters.
The mother was running around with a baseball bat, police said, and all persons at the residence were intoxicated.
The accused man was found hiding under a bed in the residence.
Police learned the 14-year-old girl and the accused man, who was 28 at the time, had been having a sexual relationship, although not during this incident.
The relationship appeared to be consensual, police said, but the girl was not over the age of consent and the age gap between the two was too large.
The conditions for the convicted man include 24-hour house arrest for the first nine months of the sentence and a curfew of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. for the final nine months.
The convicted man was also ordered not to have contact with the victim or her immediate family.
He must also take part in a sexual offender treatment program, abstain from alcohol and drugs, not have contact with anyone under 18 unless approved by his supervisor and provide a DNA sample to the court.
A charge of sexual interference against the man was stayed.
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