An Ontario Supreme Court of Justice in Canada has sentenced a 62-year-old man, Bradley Britton, who sexually assaulted two women 38 years ago, to a ‘global sentence’ of eight years.
Britton, according to court records, assaulted victim N. G. on 23 May 1987 at Toronto and victim A. N. in Oakville in 1993, both in Ontario Province.
The Presiding Judge, Conlan J, who described the two incidents as ‘historical offences’, stated last Wednesday that Britton, who was 24 when he sexually assaulted his first victim, committed grievous offences.
‘The gravity of these two offences is very significant. The degree of responsibility of this offender, Britton, is very high’, Justice Conlan said in his recent decision.
He maintained: ‘Notwithstanding Mr. Adler’s able submissions, and notwithstanding the passage of time and all of the extensive materials filed by the defence, I am of the opinion that a significant penitentiary sentence is the only reasonable disposition in this case.
‘The sentence of the court is as follows. On the conviction involving N. G., Britton is sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. On the conviction involving A. N., Britton is sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, consecutive. The global sentence is, therefore, eight ears’ imprisonment.”
‘I have deliberately tempered the sentence on each of the two convictions so as to respect the totality principle and so that the mitigating factors are properly accounted for. For example, five ears in custody for breaking into the home of and sexually assaulting, with full vaginal penetration, a random woman in her bed, at knife point, is relatively low’, the judge stressed.
He added: ‘Overall, though, I am satisfied that the global sentence imposed is a fit one’.
According to court records, the sexual offences were committed some six years apart, against the two different victims, in different cities, and in different circumstances, and therefore, consecutive sentences were appropriate, keeping in mind the totality principle.
Britton, who had a lengthy history of drug and alcohol addiction but never committed any crime since the assaults, was discovered as the perpetrator after ‘a determined police investigation by both Toronto and Halton authorities, and with the assistance of an expert genealogy laboratory in Texas’, United States in 2023.
He was alleged to have invaded N. G. home between 3am and 4am, and assaulted the then 28-year-old married mother of three children while sleeping. ‘The family was asleep in their apartment on Jane Street. The couple’s one-year-old daughter was sleeping in the bed beside the victim. The husband and the couple’s two older daughters, five and eight years old, were asleep in the adjacent room’, the record disclosed.
Britton allegedly threatened to kill the woman who later told police that ‘she was afraid of dying during the attack’.
Similarly, the accused had laid ambush on the 20-year-old A. G. while she was walking home in Oakville in 1993 and sexually attacked her.
‘When he was finished with her, Britton told the victim to count to 20 before she moved. He told her not to tell anyone and that he would be watching her. He then left the area’, the court record disclosed.
The record added: ‘Police determined that Britton had been hiding behind a gravestone and watching the walking path that had been used by the victim. He had run out from behind the gravestone to attack A. N’.
