Can a conditional discharge be the right sentence for sexual assault? Quebec legal experts weigh in

Warning: This story contains disturbing details of sexual assault. A list of resources for people who have experienced sexual violence appears at the end of the article.

A chorus of outrage from victims' rights groups, politicians and other Quebecers crescendoed this week, in the wake of a Quebec court judge's decision to grant a conditional discharge to a man who pleaded guilty to sexual assault and voyeurism.

Judge Matthieu Poliquin issued that ruling last month, after Simon Houle, an engineer from Trois-Rivières, admitted to sexually assaulting a woman in 2019 and, according to the judgment, taking photographs of her "private parts" while she slept.

Advocates for sexual assault survivors said the decision minimizes the gravity of sexual assault and could contribute to making victims hesitant to come forward with their own complaints.

A conditional discharge means Houle will not have a criminal record if he follows a series of conditions for a period of probation, in this case three months. 

Some legal experts are now calling into question the weight certain factors, such as a person's professional status, bear on influencing a sentence and whether a conditional discharge can ever be the right call in a case of sexual assault. 

In his decision, the judge described how the victim, asleep at a party, was "awoken by the light from a camera. She felt fingers in her vagina moving back and forth." Her camisole was hiked up and her bra detached from the front.

A few days later, a friend of the perpetrator who was aware of the event looked into Houle's phone. "He then found, in the trash bin of the device, photos of a woman's private parts," the judge said. 

Rachel Chagnon, a professor in the department of legal sciences at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), says the role of a judge is to determine the most appropriate sentence for the individual case before him or her, by taking into consideration aggravating and mitigating factors. 

"If the accused planned the crime, this is an aggravating factor. If the accused regrets his or her actions, this is a mitigating factor," she said. 

She said in this case, the judge concluded there were more mitigating factors than aggravating ones, therefore opting for a lighter sentence. However, Chagnon questions the message a conditional discharge for sexual assault sends to the public. 

In sentencing, "the appearance of justice is as important as justice itself in order to ensure public confidence in the system," she said. 

"In a world where we recognize that historically we have not been severe enough, that we have not sent a clear enough message about the seriousness of sexual assault, does a sentence that appears at first glance to be relatively lenient send the message we want to send?" asked Chagnon, in an interview on Radio-Canada's Midi info.

In his decision, the judge said Houle "greatly regrets his actions" and the consequences of a criminal record "would have particularly negative and disproportionate consequences for him," in part because it would make it hard for him to travel for his job as an engineer.