75-year-old man handed prison time for sexual abuse dating back 5 decades

A 75-year-old man was handcuffed outside a Kentville, N.S., courtroom Thursday and taken away by deputy sheriffs after he was sentenced to prison time for sexually abusing his younger brother five decades ago.

Provincial court Judge Angela Caseley handed the man 3½ years behind bars, saying he repeatedly used his victim, who was a young adolescent at the time of the offences in the 1970s, for his own sexual gratification, assaulting him in the boy's bedroom at night.

"A child's bedroom should be a safe and secure place. It should be a child's refuge," Caseley said.

CBC News is not naming the offender, who lives in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, as doing so would identify his younger brother, whose name is banned from publication.

Last fall, the man was also sentenced for sexually abusing his sister in 1967. But he received just two years of probation because at the time of the offences he was only 17 years old, which meant he was treated by the court as a young offender even though he is now in his 70s.

The younger brother reported the abuse to police in 2022 and his older brother was subsequently charged with offences dating between 1971 and 1976.

Caseley said the younger brother "carried his secret" until he finally told his wife when he was 37. His victim impact statement details how he long felt shame, embarrassment and fear, according to the judge, and he has struggled to trust people, express his emotions and have close relationships with his family.

"There are no words to express the horror and shock of being sexually abused," the judge said, reading from the man's victim impact statement. 

"There are no words to adequately convey the pain, confusion and sense of shame, betrayal, the loss of innocence, and the lifelong suffering and loss of capacity to enjoy life that has followed me."

Caseley noted the older brother pleaded guilty to the charge of indecent assault. That is mitigating, she said, as is the man's remorse and feeling of shame.

She said he himself had previously been a victim of sexual abuse, which was part of the "household environment" he grew up in, and he was abusing alcohol at the time of the offences.

While those factors reduce his moral culpability, Caseley said, he still has a "very high degree of responsibility" by choosing "his own pleasure over the well-being of a child." He only stopped when his victim stood up to him.

The sentence handed down by Caseley fell in line with the one sought by the prosecutor in the case, Nathan McLean. In doing so, she rejected the defence request for a conditional sentence followed by probation.