According to a survey by Homework, 7 of the 15 men who allegedly killed their spouse last year had already been charged with domestic violence: sexual assault, assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and death threats are among the charges we found by reviewing their files. Marked by a worrying number of domestic murders in Quebec, the year 2021 illustrates the difficulties of the judicial and police systems in stopping the perpetrators of domestic violence.
Brandon McIntyre is charged with the murder of Rebekah Harry, who died in March 2021. Three days after being hospitalized, the 29-year-old died from her injuries, becoming the seventh victim in less than seven weeks to feature on the dark list of feminicides committed in Quebec.
However, this same man had been harassing his ex-spouse for twelve years, repeatedly ignoring the conditions imposed by the municipal and provincial courts which prohibited him from communicating with her or being in her presence.
“We didn’t know anything about this man,” says Rebekah’s sister, Sarah-Lisa Harry. “They had been together for less than four months, for us it was a shock. Her family members don’t know if Rebekah Harry knew about her new husband’s violent past, as she had never told them about it.
Over the years, the Montrealer had threatened his ex-spouse, telling her that her friends would take care of her and her family. He had also implied that she was not safe in her neighborhood, that she and her relatives were at risk of being shot. By imitating a revolver with his hand, he threw “Pow pow bang bang” to the mother of his ex-girlfriend, whom he had met in the street. He had been arrested, detained and charged with uttering threats of death or bodily harm.
In December 2013, he finally pleaded guilty to these charges, but since he had spent 60 days in detention, his sentence was suspended.
Five months later, his ex-wife filed a complaint again against him because he insulted her in a convenience store, spat on her and followed her a few days later, when he was forbidden to be within 200 meters of it. He was arrested and detained for breaching the conditions. “My son, he is a very good guy […] a very good person”, supported the mother of Mr. McIntyre to help him obtain his freedom while waiting for the end of the procedures. She called her son’s ex a “problem person”. The son was released, and the judge even pointed out that his mother’s testimony had worked in his favor. He eventually pleaded guilty again and was given 100 hours of community service and two years of unsupervised probation.
This is not a unique case of recidivism. Our analysis shows that 7 of the 15 men who allegedly killed their partners in 2021 were known to the courts.
Data from the Department of Justice establishes that each year, of the total number of domestic violence cases, a quarter relate to non-compliance with conditions.
sad record
Thomassie Cain was awaiting trial for assault with a weapon against his ex-wife Elisapee Angma. Having violated his conditions for a third time, he was arrested and detained. The 41-year-old managed to convince the court that he was not a danger to Mme Angma after agreeing to move to another village in Nunavik.
“Knowing that you will be living in another community reassures the court that the plaintiff will be safe,” Judge Peggy Warolin said.
Ten days later, Thomassie Cain killed Elisapee Angma before taking her own life.
What is most disturbing is that the author of the first feminicide of 2021 in Quebec had an overwhelming criminal past: he appeared 51 times in the criminal docket, 11 times for charges of domestic violence. He was also placed on the sex offender registry after pleading guilty to two sexual assault cases in 2010 and 2013.
Why was this repeat offender released? In the courts, detention is the exception. “For an accused to remain detained [en attendant son procès]the Crown must demonstrate that there is a substantial likelihood [qu’il soit un risque pour la société] “, explains M.and Audrey Mercier-Turgeon, Acting Deputy Chief Prosecutor and Provincial Domestic Violence Coordinator for the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP). “When the accused has previous convictions for domestic violence, this burden can be reversed, so it is up to him to prove that his detention is not necessary. »
This provision was applied to the case of Mr. Cain, who had succeeded in convincing Judge Peggy Warolin that his detention was not necessary. The judge had declared in court: “Today, I give you the opportunity to really change your life. The DPCP has no data on the number of reversals of the burden of proof that have led to the detention of an accused awaiting trial.
“We poorly assess the potential for danger. There are those who go to court and say “yes, yes, I understood”, and it passes like a letter in the post office. How can we give so much value to the words of men who wanted to control their spouse? How can we do this? says Manon Monastesse, Executive Director of the Federation of Women’s Shelters.
According to our investigation, three other men who would have killed their ex-spouse in 2021 were repeat offenders. They had faced several charges of domestic violence before committing the irreparable. Two of them committed suicide, and the other tried to do so by causing a car accident, but survived.
The “810”
Noureddine Mimouni had been charged with criminal harassment, forcible confinement and assault against his partner, Nathalie Piché, in December 2020. In February 2021, the charges were dropped because his wife, with whom he still lived, no longer wanted bear witness. The prosecution, however, feared for his safety, and the judge ordered the 34-year-old to “keep the peace, [d’]be of good conduct and [de] not to annoy Nathalie Piché”. This is called an “810” in legal jargon. This order makes it possible to impose conditions on a defendant when there are fears for the safety of a person, such as the prohibition to communicate with him or to be near his home or place of work.
Four months later, the police found Nathalie Piché dead in her home in Limoilou. Mr. Mimouni surrendered to the police and was charged with first degree murder.
” [Les ordonnances 810 créent] a false sense of security, because they do not necessarily prevent the violence from continuing”, notes the Committee of Experts on Support for Victims of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence in its report published in December 2020. This committee had been mandated by Quebec to find ways to better support victims. He also notes that “the police did not easily follow up on victims’ complaints when they denounced the non-compliance with conditions”.
Another man, also suspected of having killed his spouse last year, had also received an 810 when his partner had filed a complaint 13 years ago, reveals our investigation.
In seven years, from 2015 to 2021, courts issued 1,365 810 orders. In the same period, there were 707 reported violations of 810 orders, according to Department of Justice data obtained by The duty. Each year in Quebec, approximately 18,000 domestic violence cases are processed by the legal system.
Overview too late
In his report on the death of Jerry Simon published in January, coroner Jacques Ramsay points out the difficulty of considering the facts as a whole in cases of domestic violence. He evokes the many stakeholders who navigate through a file without putting together all “the pieces of the puzzle”.
A few days before Christmas, in December 2019, Mr. Simon hid under the stairwell of the building where his ex-wife Khaoula Grissa lived and waited for her to come out to break into her home and l ‘expect. “He assaulted her and made her live a real ordeal”, before taking her own life, notes the coroner.
This story of domestic violence had been going on for almost four years. In February 2016, the police intervened for the first time to evict Mr. Simon from the marital home. He is charged with assault, but the couple reconcile and the charges drop. During the following years, the police intervened on several occasions. In October 2019, Jerry Simon was sentenced to two months in prison for slapping Khaoula Grissa and grabbing her by the throat. This does not prevent him from phoning her from the prison, while he is forbidden to communicate with her. As soon as he was released, he did it again by trying to contact her through friends. He tells his probation officer that he will reconcile with her. On Facebook, he writes that he will spend Christmas with his wife and daughter and posts photos of her. He will end up sexually assaulting her at home at the point of a knife. He then locked her and her daughter in the bathroom before taking his own life.
“Nobody put all the pieces together and said ‘oops, we’re not going in the right direction'”, underlines in an interview with The duty Coroner Jacques Ramsay. “The overall portrait, the famous “big picture”, does not appear, or does not appear until too late. »
This finding echoes the analysis of the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee, which reviewed 10 cases to write its first report, published in December 2020. In six cases, the perpetrator had a history of domestic violence and sexual assault. In nine files, the police had been contacted by the victim or the aggressor before the fatal tragedy.
The family of Rebekah Harry, who was allegedly the victim of a repeat offender whose past she seemed unaware of, insists on the importance of speaking out and denouncing domestic violence. Pending the trial of Brandon McIntyre, accused of having killed his daughter, a procedure whose date has not yet been set, Yolande Frenette asks that the perpetrators of violence be supervised. “That has to change, the laws have to change, our system has to be dissuasive, not permissive. »