Crown Seeks Five-Year Offender Registry for National League Officer Guilty of Sexual Assault | The Canadian News

A Newfoundland and Labrador Crown prosecutor is calling for a police officer convicted of sexually assaulting a young woman at her home in 2014 to be sentenced to five years in prison.

Lloyd Strickland argued Wednesday that the breach of trust committed by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Const. Carl Douglas Snelgrove of the Royal Newfoundland Police was a “blot on the entire administration of justice” and justified a five-year sentence, as well as registration as a sex offender for two decades, among other stipulations.

“The assault was a very significant violation of her sexual integrity,” Strickland told the provincial Supreme Court on Wednesday, referring to the woman and her victim impact statement, which she read aloud. “It is clear that she is already in her own prison.”

A jury convicted Snelgrove in May of sexually assaulting the woman in her living room after he drove her home from outside a St. John’s, NL nightclub in December 2014. She was 21 at that time. moment.

Defense attorney Randy Piercey asked for a sentence of between 18 months and two years, arguing that the woman did not actively resist the sexual activity and Snelgrove did not plan to have sex with her when he offered to take her.

The high-profile case was tried three times after a successful appeal and subsequent mistrial, sparking protests and demonstrations of support for women across the city each time a new trial began. She testified in all three trials, and the court process added to her trauma, she said in her impact statement.

‘It stole my sense of security’

She wrote that she has trust and intimacy issues due to aggression, as well as depression, anxiety, and a “great loss of security and confidence.” He tried to kill himself about a year after the assault, he wrote, and ended up in a mental health hospital in St. John’s.

She still has night terrors and wakes up abruptly in a panic if she hears noise outside her window, her statement said. He said he moved out of St. John’s as soon as he could.

“It robbed me of my sense of security in my own home,” he wrote, adding, “How can you trust someone when you can’t even trust the police? The police are supposed to keep us safe from harm. What he did hurt me so much. “

Snelgrove’s wife, Diana Parsons, wrote a statement for the defense, which she read in court.

“Doug Snelgrove is my husband, a man I have known and loved for over 20 years,” she began. The charges against him were a “total and utter shock,” Parsons said. “It felt like (they) were talking about someone else.”

“I’m not here before you today because I agree with what Doug did,” he said. “His actions were unforgivable.” She said that what she did was morally wrong, but that she did not believe it was a crime.

She said Snelgrove had dedicated her life to service, including several years with the Canadian Armed Forces in Kosovo and Edmonton before joining the Royal Newfoundland Police. She witnessed the death in Kosovo, and when four soldiers from her platoon died in Afghanistan while he was in Alberta, she said she worked tirelessly to help bereaved families.

“To this day, he still cannot explain his behavior that night in December 2014, except that it was a complete lack of judgment,” he said. “He knows how stupid he was, and it hasn’t been a single day since he hasn’t regretted his actions.” He said that as a result of the lawsuits and media attention, Snelgrove has anxiety and depression and has been seeing a psychologist.

Supreme Court Justice Vikas Khaladkar has ordered that Snelgrove be detained pending his sentencing decision on November 12.

This Canadian Press report was first published on September 29, 2021.