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sentence appeal partially allowed, but length unchanged, in sask. home invasion sex assault
william david angus will still serve a 19-year sentence for breaking into a rural home and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in 2018.
aug 15 2024
4 minute read
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warning: details of child sex assault
a saskatchewan man who appealed aspects of his 19-year sentence for breaking into a farmhouse and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl at gunpoint will get more credit for the time he spent in pre-sentence custody.
however, the total sentence william david angus received remains unchanged, according to a saskatchewan court of appeal decision released wednesday.
angus was convicted of breaking and entering to commit a sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon against a person under 16, using a firearm in the commission of the offence, discharging a firearm with intent to prevent arrest and unlicensed possession of a firearm after a battleford court of king’s bench trial in 2020.
court decisions state the victim was looking after her siblings when angus, a 45-year-old stranger, knocked on the door of their pierceland-area property on july 16, 2018.
he asked if someone lived there and pretended to leave after the girl said he had the wrong house. when she returned to lock the door, angus was inside with a remington 760 rifle.
he assaulted her in a laundry room and on a living room couch before suddenly getting dressed and leaving. court heard he fired two shots as the girl’s father chased him off the property.
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the father, who was running an errand, had received a text from his younger daughter saying a man with a gun was in their home.
angus was sentenced in january 2021 to 16 years for sexual assault with a weapon and three additional years for discharging a firearm. he received concurrent 10- and 14-year sentences for breaking and entering and using a firearm in the offence.
with credit for pre-sentence custody, he had almost 16 years left to serve.
angus, who self-represented at his sentencing hearing, appealed his sentence. his grounds of appeal alleged that the sentencing judge failed to give him enhanced credit for some of the time he spent in pre-sentence custody, and erred in making the 14-year firearm sentence concurrent with the sexual assault and break and enter sentences.
he also argued that the judge “erred in principle by failing to analyze whether (his) gladue factors reduced his moral culpability.”
the appeal was heard in october 2022 and november 2023.
the crown argued for a sentence adjustment that would correct an illegal sentence on the 14-year concurrent firearm sentence, while leaving the global 19-year sentence in place.
in her written decision, justice lian schwann ruled that angus’s 16-year sexual assault with a weapon sentence should be reduced to 14 years.
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while acknowledging the seriousness of the offence, schwann found the sentencing judge didn’t consider how the perpetrator’s gladue factors — systemic factors that courts must analyze when sentencing indigenous offenders — contributed to his offending.
a pre-sentence report outlined his reported abuse at a residential day school, poverty and dislocation from his indigenous community.
“while the judge appeared to understand that she had to consider mr. angus’s gladue factors, she did not turn her mind to the specifics of his past and how his life experiences may have played a role in bringing him before the court or how they might have had an impact on the sentence to be imposed.
“this oversight resulted in an over-emphasis on denunciation and deterrence, leading to a sentence that did not properly assess mr. angus’s moral blameworthiness in relation to the principle of proportionality,” schwann concluded.
justices neal caldwell and jeffery kalmakoff agreed with increasing his enhanced remand credit by 133 days and varying the sentences to fix the legal error, but dissented with schwann’s proposed sentence reduction.
angus didn’t argue that the 16-year sexual assault sentence was “demonstrably unfit,” or that the global 19-year sentence “offends the principle of totality,” caldwell noted.
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the criminal code states the 14-year maximum sentence for sexual assault with a weapon increases to life imprisonment when the victim is a child.
“the circumstances of the sexual assault in this case were so egregious that a sentence of 16 years was entirely appropriate to serve the fundamental purpose of sentencing — i.e., to protect society and contribute to respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society — by achieving the objectives of denouncing mr. angus’s crimes and deterring him and others from committing similar crimes,” caldwell wrote.
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