The following article appeared in the local Saturday newspaper. It doesn't pertain to any Silentlambs victims, but I thought the victim impact statements from the family members were worth mentioning here.
A certain individual has been making statements regarding the plaintiff in a current court case, saying how the victim/survivor was once a happy loving child, but then became an angry vindictive person. Perhaps seeing others with similar painful responses to child molestation will help this person to see that the anger, depression, nightmares, and even the desire for justice to be done are all common to people who have experienced child sexual abuse.
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Ottawa Citizen, Saturday, September 14, 2002
'There is no way to ease her pain,' victim's mother tells court
Impact statements read at pedophile's dangerous offender hearing; case adjourned until November
By Jake Rupert
A dozen impact statements were filed at the dangerous offender hearing of pedophile Ian Cheeseman yesterday before the case was adjourned until November for final arguments.
The statements - mostly from mothers of the girls he sexually assaulted - are sad tales of happy children who turned despondent, nervous, angry and untrusting.
"It will never go away, however much we want it to," writes the mother of one girl who was assaulted at age six in 1996. "I worry about the impact when she is older and able to understand better what was done to her."
Another mother of a four-year-old girl Mr. Cheeseman assaulted two years ago in front of her six-year-old brother said her family is forever changed.
"After the assault, (she) became a very angry little girl. She would tell us that we didn't love her. She felt that we had let her down. It was like she hated the world for what this individual had done to her,' the statements read in part. "Her brother felt guilty for not being able to stop it. He still worries that the bad guy is going to come back and do this to his sister again."
The girl "is very easily angered and sobs uncontrollably when upset. Both children have nightmares about the assault."
Another mother whose nine-year-old daughter was abducted by Mr. Cheeseman in 1999 says since the assault, she divorced her husband, in part to ease the fear of her daughter who now regards all men as a threat. The woman says her daughter's nightmares are unceasing.
"She screams so loud at times and then is sick to her stomach the next day. There is no way to ease her pain. She has told me she is scared that he will get out of jail and come after her."
Last fall, Mr. Cheeseman, 34, who last lived in Montreal, pleaded guilty to 16 sex crimes against 15 girls aged four to 12 and one charge involving the six-year-old boy. The charges cover a 13-year span, from 1986 to 1999 when he was arrested, and were committed from Montreal to Hamilton. The convictions include sexual assault, sexual touching, forcible confinement and kidnapping.
Mr. Cheeseman is a diagnosed pedophile and urophile, meaning he is sexually aroused by urine.
His early attacks consisted of waiting in areas where young girls would be and trying to get them to urinate on him or in pails. This changed to hiding in school bathrooms and preying on girls who walked in. Finally, he got more brash and started abducting girls off streets and into his van.
He would drive the highways of Ontario looking for places to attack, then drive back to Montreal, where he lived with a woman whose young daughter he was sexually assaulting.
After he pleaded guilty, the Crown applied to have him declared a dangerous offender and jailed indefinitely.
At his hearing, Dr. Philip Klassen, a forensic psychiatrist testifying for the Crown, said Mr. Cheeseman is a psychopath an pedophile who has almost a 100-per-cent chance chance of reoffending if he is released in to the community in the next 10 years - regardless of whether he is treated with sex-drive reducing drugs.
Dr. John Federoff, a forensic psychiatrist who testified for the defence, agreed Mr. Cheeseman is a serious risk, but nobody could know if the treatment would work or not because it's never been tried. Furthermore, the doctor said all evidence points to Mr. Cheeseman being treatable.
His defence lawyer, Doug Baum, is arguing that there is a reasonable possibility Mr. Cheeseman could be controlled in the community with heavy drugs to reduce his sex drive, and, therefore, his client doesn't meet the dangerous offender criteria. Instead, Mr. Baum argues Mr. Cheeseman should be declared a long-term offender, be sentenced normally then subject to up to 10 years of conditions and monitoring once his sentence is complete.
Crown attorney Robert Peltier is arguing there is no hope for Mr. Cheeseman, and, for the protection of society, the pedophile should be jailed indefinitely until the parole board deems he is no longer a risk.