Quebec's prosecution office says a judge relied on "stereotypes" and used a man's inebriated state to excuse him for sexually assaulting a woman when he spared him from jail time in a sentencing decision last month.
The June 21 sentencing decision in the case of Simon Houle, an engineer from Trois-Rivières, Que., caused an uproar after a judge ordered a conditional discharge and a three-year probation term for the 30-year-old. Houle pleaded guilty to charges of sexual assault and voyeurism after assaulting the woman and taking photos of her private parts in 2019.
Justice Matthieu Poliquin wrote in his judgment that a jail sentence would cause "significant harm" to his engineering career since Houle is required to travel for work.
On Friday, the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) filed an appeal to challenge the judge's sentence.
In the court filing, obtained by CTV News, prosecutor Ève-Lyne Goulet said the judge made several errors in his assessment of the case, "which does not reflect the current understanding of the harms caused by sexual offences."
"The judge's comment that the inebriated state of the offender, although it is neither a defence nor a justification, can help explain his behaviour tends to excuse" his actions, Goulet wrote.
The appeal also argued that the judge's comments regarding how the assault happened "in a hurry" seemed to lessen the seriousness of the assault on the woman and that Justice Poliquin failed to "give sufficient importance to the subjective gravity of the offences" committed by Houle.
The DPCP is asking the Quebec Court of Appeal to overturn the conviction and impose a jail sentence of up to 18 months, which is what the prosecution had originally requested during the trial. In the alternative, the appeal is asking the court to deliver a different sentence that it deems "appropriate."
COMPLAINT AGAINST JUDGE UNDER REVIEW
The filing of the appeal comes one day after The Canadian Press reported that the Quebec judicial council is reviewing a complaint against the trial judge.
The Conseil de la magistrature, which oversees judges in Quebec, wrote to the authors of a petition calling for Justice Poliquin's appointment to be revoked that the complaint will be examined next month.
Kareen Emery created the petition, which collected more than 4,600 signatures in one week.
"What I asked was to evaluate if this person should go under investigation and that's exactly what they are going to do. So I am satisfied," she told The Canadian Press.
"I think that's the furthest we could go. We showed that we were dissatisfied and I tell myself that if this kind of action is repeated in the future and that every time there are judges who show decisions that are not in line with who we want to be as a nation, at some point they will think about it a little bit more before giving them," she added with a laugh.
The sentencing prompted a protest outside the Montreal courthouse last weekend and widespread condemnation from groups that advocate on behalf of survivors of sexual assault.
In addition to three years of probation, Houle was also ordered to keep the peace and good behaviour, to not communicate with the complainant in the criminal case or her family, to seek psychological treatment approved by his probation officer.
The court also ordered him to donate $6,000 within 32 months to an organization that supports survivors of sexual assault.
With files from The Canadian Press
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