Yellowknife man sentenced for sexual assault of 13-year-old
CBC
Warning: This story contains details that may be disturbing to anyone who has experienced sexual assault or knows someone affected by it.
A Yellowknife man was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in 2021.
Bradley Storm Beaulieu, 26, appeared in a Yellowknife courtroom via video from an Alberta prison where he's serving unrelated sentences for impaired driving offences.
This week, the court heard the facts of Beaulieu's sexual assault case. He pleaded guilty last fall. The victim's name and any information that could identify her are under a publication ban.
Beaulieu, then 22, first met the victim at a Yellowknife gas station in the summer of 2021, and they connected on social media.
The girl told him that she was 13 years old, but Beaulieu pursued her anyway.
He asked her to come to his house and offered to pay her $100. She went over, and Beaulieu had sex with her. The girl wanted to leave, but Beaulieu didn't stop. The girl could not legally consent regardless, because of her age. The court heard that she was scared and didn't know what to do.
After RCMP charged Beaulieu, the girl was prepared to testify, but on the morning she was set to appear in court, Beaulieu pleaded guilty.
Crown prosecutor Morgan Fane said the girl's aunt characterized her niece's experience as "a life sentence" that will affect her for the rest of her days.
The Crown asked the court for a four-to-five year sentence for the sexual assault, to be served as soon as his current sentences end.
Fane said his proposed sentence was "restrained," taking into account that Beaulieu was a young adult when he committed the crime, but also "denunciatory of the abhorrent conduct."
A pre-sentencing Gladue report revealed that Beaulieu had a difficult childhood. He was mostly raised by his grandparents, who survived residential school. His parents drank and he experienced family violence. He lost a close friend to suicide.
But Beaulieu's lawyer, Jay Bran, said his client was working on himself in prison. He said Beaulieu got his GED, and he's become a skilled carpenter. Bran added that Beaulieu has taken nearly two dozen courses in prison related to drugs and alcohol.
"This bodes well for his eventual return to the community," said Bran.
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