Cellphone surveillance proved to be the undoing of a man who was taking advantage of his roommate while she slept.
The 30-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victim, pleaded guilty to sexual assault in Red Deer provincial court on Thursday, before Judge Thomas Schollie.
Court heard that the man arrived in Canada from India two and a half years ago and has lived in Red Deer since then.
Crown prosecutor Murray McPherson said the woman was sexually abused as a child. She started waking up with those same feelings of having been violated in recent months, said McPherson.
She had no idea if anything had happened, however, because her sleep medications put her in a deep stupor.
She recalled awakening one night to see the outline of someone who looked like her roommate leaving her room.
With no evidence to support her feelings, she was unable to go to the police for help.
So she decided to set up a cellphone to take video while she was asleep. For two nights, it gathered nothing and she woke up each morning feeling fine, said McPherson.
Then, on the night of March 21, her cellphone recorded a series of events while she slept in a chair in the living room.
It recorded her roommate entering the living room, peering about, locking doors and closing windows.
The video shows him fondling her breasts and performing various acts, while her boyfriend lay sleeping in another room down the hall.
Police were called and the roommate was arrested and charged.
While McPherson recommended a jail sentence of one year, defence counsel Dan Wilson asked that the court limit the sentence to the 53 days the man has served in remand since his arrest.
Wilson said he has received confirmation that his client’s actions have sabotaged his application for citizenship and that he is about to be deported.
Schollie sentenced the man to five months in jail, consecutive to the time he has served in remand, and ordered that he surrender a sample of his DNA.
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com