A former Hamilton police officer will not go to jail for sexually assaulting the woman he was mentoring as she pursued her own career in policing.

Michael LaCombe, 54, will instead serve 12 months of house arrest followed by 12 months of probation after Justice Cameron Watson found him guilty of two counts of sexual assault in January, following a trial.

Watson sentenced LaCombe on Monday at the Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines, Ont., describing his crimes and the aftermath as “a spectacular and cataclysmic fall from grace” in his written decision.

“His life has taken an irreparable downward spiral. He is no longer the man he once was,” Watson wrote.

Watson also described how LaCombe’s conduct “devastated” the victim, who has felt isolated and suffers from panic attacks, among other impacts, in recent years.

  • BlameThePeacockEnglish
    205·
    8 months ago

    If writing fictional stories about teenagers having sex should result in being a sex offender, why is George R. R. Martin allowed in Canada? Game of Thrones (the books) have multiple graphic passages about the rape of minors, Sansa was 12 years old in the books. Even in the show, which aired in Canada, she was still underage.

    Your logic is flawed, writing fictional stories shouldn’t be a criminal offense, and even with it being illegal in Canada it isn’t applied equally.

    Rape is sexual assault, sexual assault is not always rape. Just like an apple is a fruit, but not all fruits are apples.

    Words matter, and yours aren’t correct. They don’t align with legal definitions in countries that define rape, with the common dictionary definitions, or with the common public understanding of the word.