The Crown has urged a B.C. Supreme Court justice to jail a female hockey coach who sexually preyed on a player, calling it a breach of trust and victimization of a child.
A sentence hearing was held on Friday, Feb. 21, in Kamloops and will continue at a later date.
Both the offender, in her early 40s, and the victim are females.
A publication ban prevents publishing details that would reveal identity of the victim. The woman has pleaded guilty to sexual interference of a person under 16 and sexual exploitation.
Prosecutor Don Mann said the relationship between the two started at the beginning of the hockey season in 2010, when the victim and her friend saw the woman coaching. They urged her to become a coach with their hockey team.
“They’d observed her skill at the time,” Mann told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Hope Hyslop as he outlined the beginning of a year-long relationship between coach and player.
While the offender, who has a long hockey background, initially declined, some time later the girl’s father reported he had found an assistant — who turned out to be the same woman.
The Crown has asked for a nine to 12-month jail sentence, followed by probation.
Defence lawyer Michelle Stanford has argued for 90 days jail on weekends or six months in jail, arguing it would have called for a conditional sentence before the Conservative government changed the law. The minimum sentence under the Criminal Code is now 45 days.
Calling her a “damaged woman who made a colossal mistake,” Stanford said the offender was psychologically troubled because she was coming out as a gay woman, an admission her parents regarded as evil.
“She wanted her to succeed in hockey and to assist [the girl],” Stanford said of her client. “It became an albeit illegal, but mostly beneficial relationship, to both. Unfortunately for [the offender)], it was illegal.”
During the first few months of the hockey season, the two became closer. Mann said the girl was confused about her sexuality at the time, a fact exploited by the offender.
“The offender became a role model to the victim. She’d assisted her in training and believed in her as a player,” Mann said.
Eventually, the two started texting and calling one another.
“They had discussions regarding school, hockey and eventually regarding sexuality,” Mann said. “The parents didn’t know anything about this.”
The two began to attend movies and Kamloops Blazers games. Mann said the parents agreed to the outings, believing the offender was a role model.
But, Mann, said the offender told the player not to tell her parents about their budding relationship. The pair kissed about a month-and-a-half after meeting and by November 2010, the offender was having sexual relations with the girl.
“She was treated as part of the family,” Mann said. “She frequented her residence. The parents placed significant trust in her.”
Through the year and into 2011, the pair had “countless sexual encounters,” Mann said.
Their encounters included trips to tournaments, where the two would sleep in the same bed, sometimes in the same hotel room as victim’s parents. On one occasion, three girls, including the victim, asked to sleep in the offender’s room. The two shared the same bed.
The offender also said if the victim were of age, “she’d take her away and marry her,” Mann said.
The woman was set to be sentenced on Friday, but the defence objected to a pre-sentence report prepared by a probation officer that found the woman had no remorse. Stanford said it contains errors and she wants to cross-examine the official who prepared it.
The two sides also differed on whether the sexual relationship continued into the fall of 2011, after ceasing in the summer. Evidence may be called relating to those facts.
Mann said the victim broke off the sexual relationship when the offender became involved in a relationship with another woman. The girl wrote a suicidal poem afterwards.
The girl eventually reported the relationship to a counsellor and to her mother.
It was reported to police in May 2012.
