“The Court sentences Jean Blais to 14 years in prison,” ruled Judge Serge Cimon on Monday morning. Cynthia Blais, a young woman with a shy smile sitting in the courtroom, collapsed. She burst into tears and leaned on the speaker who was consoling her. After five years of legal proceedings, she doubted whether this day would really come.
Jean Blais, the accused in question, is his father. The person who was supposed to protect her. But he used her as a sex slave for more than a decade.
“I have often thought about withdrawing my complaint. The fact that it was postponed all the time, I found it too hard,” she confided to The Press during an interview a few weeks before the sentencing.
But on Monday, as she left the courtroom, tears filled Cynthia’s eyes. She showed a smile of relief. Finally, it’s over.
I didn’t even imagine it was possible to have such light shoulders.
Cynthia Blais, at the end of the sentencing
We can name her because she had the publication ban that protected her identity lifted.
“We compare incest to a murder without a corpse,” declared judge Serge Cimon while delivering the sentence of Jean Blais, sentenced to 14 years in prison on Monday. This is the maximum incest sentence for the man accused of sexually assaulting his daughter. It is very rare for a judge to exceed the sentence requested by the Crown. The pursuit, represented by Me Brenda Toucado, suggested 12 years in this case.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Cynthia Blais at the Laval courthouse, Monday
This is the end of a long journey for Cynthia Blais. The case remained before the courts for five years due to constant postponements by the defense. The endless legal proceedings almost made her give up. Worse still, she almost lost her life.
The Press met the young woman a few weeks before her father received his sentence. Cynthia, smiling and serene, spoke to us with confidence. Nothing suggested the nightmares that inhabited her for three quarters of her life.
He treated her like his wife
Cynthia Blais watched the children’s show Bob the Builder on television the first time her father raped her. She was 7 years old.
He started again less than a week later, then continued once or twice a week. The touching became full-blown sexual assault.
When she indicated that it hurt, he told her “she would get used to it.”
Jean Blais continued to manipulate his daughter during her adolescence. If she wanted pocket money, to spend the night at a friend’s house, to go to a restaurant or to the cinema, she had to promise to give him oral sex. You had to pay to obtain the slightest “privilege”.
The defense lawyer, Mr.e Mario Lavigne asked for five years for his client.
In his reading of the forty-page judgment, Judge Cimon highlighted the resilience and courage of Cynthia Blais. She went from victim to survivor, he wrote.
Today she is a fighter who is slowly and surely regaining control of her life.
Judge Serge Cimon
After the 14-year sentence was handed down, she left the courtroom with her head full of plans. She and her wife want to have a child, she said in a soft voice. “I had my life on pause. I was too stressed. Now I have the right to be happy and one day to have a family. »
This speech overflowing with hope is the fruit of harsh trials. Because Cynthia Blais’ journey was not easy: she had to wait years before regaining control over her story.