A Cuban girl offered by her destitute mother has been exploited as a “sex toy” for years by a Quebec sex tourist. For his crimes of extreme repugnance, Alain Vandette was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison, one of the most severe sentences in Quebec in this matter.
Posted at 5:25 p.m.
“They used the child as an object, a sex toy, without any consideration for his humanity. Rather, they dehumanized her for the sexual gratification of the offender. The actions [sont] particularly degrading, ”concluded Judge Alexandre Dalmau Friday at the Montreal courthouse.
Of nameless horror, the gestures committed by Alain Vandette against this little Cuban girl are too shocking to describe. From the age of 7 to 14, the little girl found herself enslaved by this pedophile with an imagination as unbridled as it was twisted. To add to the atrocity, the girl’s mother regularly participated in the sordid sexual scenarios involving the child. Back in Quebec, the 59-year-old pedophile even watched the mother attack the child live.
“The offender produces this material in Cuba and brings it home to Canada and then returns to produce more. Its production is deliberate and repeated. Some videos and images show that the use of the child for sexual purposes is orchestrated and staged. […] The victim is made to wear costumes. We place it, we direct it, we look for a particular angle, ”explains the judge.
The sex tourist was finally caught by Quebec police in 2019 following a report. Investigators then discovered more than 500 videos and 1,000 photos showing the repeated sexual assaults on the girl. To determine the duration, the police analyzed the physical evolution of the child, until the growth of his teeth.
Even if she was not heard in court, or even found, this victim is very real, insists Judge Dalmau.
For the Tribunal, the victim is a child with a name and a face. He saw her alive, moving, growing and growing old. He heard her speak. The Tribunal is a direct witness to the sexual assaults committed by the offender.
Judge Alexandre Dalmau
Note that since the 1990s, Canadians can be tried here for such crimes committed abroad. Moreover, Judge Dalmau maintains that the actions of Alain Vandette have tarnished the reputation of Canada and constitute a “particularly despicable form of colonialism which must be denounced”.
“No empathy for the victim”
When Alain Vandette met the mother, she was living in poverty and earning 50 cents a day to wash the toilets. To barely improve her lot, the mother gave, in an “odious consideration”, her child to the Quebec pedophile, according to the judge. The mother was reportedly sentenced to 20 years in prison in Cuba.
Even today, Alain Vandette shows no empathy for the victim, who considered him a “hero”, according to him. Rather, he poses as the “savior” of the child and his mother. In his eyes, his only fault is to have been arrested. A “perfect demonstration” of the sexual exploitation of a child in a situation of great poverty, according to the judge.
The pedophile puts the blame on the mother, repeating several times to have gone “ with the flow and acting “like a zombie”. “Not only does he sexually assault the child, he films and photographs himself doing so, and then brings these ‘memories’ home. […] We are therefore a long way from the zombie ”, concludes the judge.
To establish the sentence, Judge Dalmau lists a dozen aggravating factors and barely three mitigating factors, including the partial admission of guilt and the absence of a criminal record. It is these rare mitigating factors that allow Alain Vandette to escape the maximum sentence.
Judge Dalmau thus rejects the seven-year sentence suggested by the defense to follow that of 15 years suggested by the Crown, a “reasonable, just and appropriate” sentence. Note that at the time of the events, the maximum sentence for sexual contact and production of child pornography was 10 years, whereas it is now punishable by 14 years in prison.
According to the Crown prosecutor, Ms.e Jérôme Laflamme, this sentence is one of the “most severe” imposed for such crimes.
The prosecutor also had a message to send to sex tourists: “To these Canadians who are tempted to commit sexual crimes against children, we will prosecute you and put you on trial. »