GRAPHIC WARNING: This article contains details that may be disturbing to some readers.
An Edmonton man received a fifteen-and-a-half-year sentence for kidnapping, confining and sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl in March 2020.
Wade Stene learned of his fate Wednesday afternoon in an Edmonton courthouse. Stene pleaded guilty in February to kidnapping, confining and sexually assaulting the girl, as well as unlawfully inviting a person under the age of 16 to touch her body.
“This crime was planned, predatory and brazen,” Judge Susan Richardson said in court Wednesday.
Richardson went on to say that beyond his guilty plea, Stene has not shown that he is truly remorseful.
“Total lack of self-awareness. Of course he intended for this to happen. He did this,” she said.
Richardson explained that Parliament has recently said that longer sentences are necessary when children are victims of sexual violence.
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According to an agreed statement of facts read in court earlier this year, the girl was walking in an alley in the area of 144th Street and 110th Avenue when Stene, wearing a white face mask, approached her in his Jeep and he grabbed her around the waist, pulling her toward the vehicle. Once inside her, he bound her arms and legs with duct tape and covered her mouth. He took her to a secluded area and sexually assaulted her, heard court from her.
After the assault, the agreed statement of facts says he drove the victim back to his neighborhood and left her where her father eventually found her.
The girl was so scared, the court heard, that she thought the stranger was going to eat her and kill her.
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The girl’s family addressed the court on Monday, sharing their grief and trauma.
Faced with substantial evidence against him, Stene, in his eventual confession to police, called his own acts “disgusting” and “vile.”
Stene, 39, addressed the court Tuesday and apologized multiple times.
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The Crown had sought a 20-year sentence while the defense sought 10 years.
Stene will receive credit for 1,313 days already served.
With files from Emily Mertz and Sarah Ryan, Global News.
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