Eight-year term sought for teacher who abused child

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This article was published 20/06/2019 (1918 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WARNING — Report includes graphic details of sexual assault of a child.

The Crown is recommending an eight-year prison sentence for a former Lorette school teacher who sexually abused a young girl.

Remi Dallaire, 34, was convicted after trial last September of sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, and making explicit material available to a child.

Dallaire befriended the young girl’s mother to gain access to the victim, Crown attorney Danielle Simard told court at a sentencing hearing Friday.

“He was a trusted member of the community,” Simard told Justice Ken Champagne. “There is a suggestion he relied on that to make (his interest in the girl) appear normal.”

In a written victim impact statement provided to court, the girl said Dallaire has ruined her life. She ended her statement with a drawing of a broken heart.

“You’re my biggest fear in the world,” the girl wrote.

The girl, who was eight years old during the abuse, now sees a counsellor every week and will be forever scarred by the abuse she suffered, her father wrote in his own victim impact statement.

The girl’s mother said her daughter has lost all trust in authority. “I don’t understand how any adult man in your position could ever do harm to my child, or any child,” she wrote. “You should be disgusted and horribly ashamed of yourself.”

Court heard at trial Dallaire manipulated the girl’s mother to gain her trust and preyed on the young victim — who was not one of his students — within days of meeting her in the spring of 2016.

Dallaire walked the girl to and from school and looked after her while her mother was at work. Within 30 days of meeting Dallaire, the girl was having sleepovers and showering with him. Dallaire showed the girl a pornographic video to coerce her to engage in oral sex. The abuse escalated to anal penetration.

Earlier in the sentencing hearing, Champagne rejected a motion by the defence to reopen the trial and hear evidence that another man confessed to Dallaire’s crimes.

Court heard the Headingley Correctional Centre inmate provided an eight-page confession at the same time Dallaire was in custody at the jail awaiting sentencing. The man recanted days later, saying Dallaire had promised to pay him in return for claiming responsibility for Dallaire’s crimes.

“I will not be reopening the case,” Champagne said. “There is no air of reality to the materials before me.”

Dallaire continued to maintain his innocence right up to Friday’s hearing, limiting his ability to show any remorse, said defence lawyer Matt Gould, who recommended Dallaire be sentenced to five years in prison.

“He recognizes why the law is the way it is and how serious the offences are,” Gould said. “He understands that anyone convicted of these offences is going to face a significant penitentiary term.”

Dallaire will return to court for sentencing June 26.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca