Sask. woman sentenced for encouraging sex between teen and husband

She admitted to encouraging a young girl to have sex with her husband. Now a Saskatchewan woman is behind bars.

According to court documents, the incident happened in 2010. A publication ban is in place so the people’s identities and where it happened cannot be published.

The accused woman was 37 when it happened. Court heard she and her husband were temporarily staying at another person’s house at the time. The victim, a 13-year-old girl, had gone to the house to visit a friend, but that friend wasn’t there. Instead, the accused invited the girl to have sex with her then-23-year-old husband. The accused then watched it happened.

Both the husband and wife knew the girl was under the age of 16.

In his decision, Justice Megaw called this case unique because he couldn’t find any others where the accused didn’t participate in the sexual act.

He said he didn’t view it as a major sexual assault needing significant jail time, but did call it a significant offence.

“The victim here was an extremely young girl who was exposed to sexual intercourse at the behest of the accused. Without her invitation, this offence would not have happened,” he wrote.

The accused pleaded guilty to a charge of invitation to sexual touching, while a charge of sexual interference was stayed. She told the court she was no longer with the husband from the offense, was remorseful and she knew what she did was wrong.

The Crown asked for 30 months in jail, while the accused asked for time served – 128 days – along with eight months of probation to seek addictions and mental health treatment.

At the end of May, the woman was sentenced to 12 months in jail, less the approximately four months she’d already spent in custody, along with two years probation. She was also ordered to provide a DNA sample, be placed on the sex offender registry, and to abide by a 10-year firearm ban.

The judge wrote the sentence would have been 18 months, but was reduced due to factors in the Gladue report that was prepared. The report said the woman had a rough childhood, that she’d had a series of abusive relationships including with the husband involved in the incident, previous substance abuse problems, and mental health problems as well as apparent Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder symptoms. He wrote “the global impact of her past is beyond dispute.”

There was no indication in the court documents what charges, if any, her then-husband faced.