BC man guilty of sexually assaulting teen daughter fails to overturn conviction

A man convicted in October 2023 in Williams Lake of sexually assaulting his 16-year-old daughter failed to convince the BC Court of Appeal that the judge did not try him within a reasonable time.

The guilty man, known only as W.E.S. in the judgment, to protect the identity of his victim, appealed on constitutional grounds after he had been found guilty at the eight-day trial.

While Justice Sandra Wilkinson made errors in analysis of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the May 20 appeal verdict said she reached the correct conclusion.

At trial, Wilkinson found the man had touched his daughter sexually and without consent during a six-hour drive from Penticton to Williams Lake on Jan. 13, 2019, after they attended a birthday party for his youngest daughter.

“The case is unusual in that, although there had been four adjourned trial dates, Mr. S did not bring a delay application until the trial had concluded and he had been found guilty,” said the ruling by Justice Paul Riley, agreed by Justices Harvey Groberman and Amy Francis.

It was 40 months from the date he was charged to the end of his trial. But the trial judge found the delay fell under the presumptive 30-month ceiling, after she subtracted defence delays and exceptional circumstances.

In his appeal, he said there were three periods of delays totalling 513 days, thus putting it over the 30-month ceiling.

Riley’s ruling said it was 1,219 days — just over 40 months — between the charge and the conclusion of trial. The defence was to blame for two months of delays, leaving 38 months.

But, Riley ruled that four-and-a-half months were justified due to a defence lawyer’s illness and five-and-a-half months were justified after a defence lawyer withdrew from the case.

That left 855 days, or 28.25 months, which is below the 30-month presumptive ceiling.

The appeal verdict did find the trial judge erred in analyzing the delay from successive adjournments due to the illness and withdrawal. But that was not enough to overturn the conviction.

“Mr. S did not argue that total delay falling under the 30‑month ceiling was unreasonable based upon sustained defence efforts to expedite the proceedings,” Riley wrote. “It follows that, while the trial judge made several errors in her analysis, she reached the right conclusion in finding that there was no infringement of Mr. S’s right to be tried within a reasonable time.”