Daughter of accused recounts years of terror
at Quebec incest trial
CBC News
The 53-year-old daughter of a 79-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting his children gave a chilling account in court Tuesday of how he sexually assaulted her when she was eight years old and for decades after. (Sketch by Laurie Foster-Macleod for CBC News)
Warning: The following account from the second day of testimony at the trial of a Val-des-Monts, Que., man facing incest and sexual assault charges contains descriptions of events some readers may find deeply disturbing.
The now-adult daughter of a west Quebec man on trial for incest and sexual assault gave a disturbing account in a Gatineau courtroom Tuesday of what she described as more than 30 years of sexual abuse and terror at her father's hands.
The woman, now 53, testified on the second day of the jury trial of the accused, a 79-year-old father of eight and an Outaouais businessman now living in Val-des-Monts, Que.
He faces three charges of incest, two of indecent assault and one of sexual assault.
The woman had sought and obtained on Tuesday permission to lift the publication ban on her name, but CBC and Radio-Canada have chosen not to name her to protect the identities of other members of her family.
The CBC changed their minds a few days later; see below.
Speaking in French in a trembling voice, she said the first incident happened when she was eight years old and living in Cantley, Que., when her father drove her to Montreal to shop for clothes for Christmas.
She said during the trip they stopped at a motel, and once they were in a room, he sexually assaulted her.
No place safe, witness told court
The woman said her father told her that he was doing it for her own good, but that if she told anyone about it — including her mother — the police would take her from her family.
The incident was the first in what she described as an unrelenting series of sexual assaults that, as she told the court, were too many to count.
She said no time or place was safe, testifying that she was raped in his van, at the house, the cottage, in the woods and even during her lunch break at school.
The woman told the court she was afraid to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, for fear her father would wake up and assault her.
Pregnant at 13
She became pregnant at the age of 13 and testified that the accused was the father.
How did this issue not get brought to light when she was pregnant at 13. Some doctor failed to do his job, it appears, and she paid for it with many more years of rape and 2 more pregnancies. How does a woman tell her children who their father is when it is her own father? What kind of stigma does that leave a child when she does tell them the truth?
She said her mother didn't ask her who the father was. Her parents first sought to get her an abortion, but her pregnancy was too far along, she said.
She told the court her father raped her daily during her pregnancy.
She said she became pregnant once more in her late teens and again in her twenties, and each time she said the accused was the father.
She sobbed in the court as she recounted how, when her mother died in 2004 from pancreatic cancer, her father raped her on the day of the funeral.
Went to police in 2014
A few weeks later, the woman testified, her father stopped the assaults but continued to threaten her.
With her mother dead, the alleged victim told the court she felt she no longer had to protect her.
She testified she finally broke down and told one of her sisters everything, and in 2014 went to police.
When asked by the Crown why she hadn't gone to the police sooner, the woman said she was terrified and humiliated and didn't know who to trust.
She said her father was a prominent man in the communities they lived in, and was friends with several police officers, who would come to the house to play cards.
Man convicted of incest sentenced to
15 years in prison
By Paul Cote Jay, CBC News
Jacques Lesage, 79, was found guilty on Jan. 20 of three counts of incest and one count of indecent assault in relation to two of his daughters: Lucie Lesage, now 53, and Nathalie Lesage, 49. (Supplied photo)
A 79-year-old Val-des-Monts, Que., man convicted of sexually abusing two of his daughters for years and fathering three children with one of them has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Gatineau judge.
Jacques Lesage will also be added to the sex offender registry, and has been forbidden from communicating with his two daughters at the centre of this case, as well as another daughter.
Taking into account time served, there are 11 years and eight months left in the sentence.
Lesage was found guilty last Friday of three counts of incest and one count of indecent assault in relation to Lucie Lesage and Nathalie Lesage, now 53 and 49, respectively.
The identities of victims in sexual assault cases are typically protected by a publication ban, but the women in this case asked for the ban to be lifted so that their father's name could be published.
Lucie and Nathalie Lesage hugged in the courtroom and spoke to reporters, clasping each other's hands.
"We're turning a page," Lucie Lesage said in French. "For sure, the wounds are still there, but we'll learn to live with them and to rebuild ourselves totally — a little bit at a time."
They said they were satisfied with the judge's recognition of what they had to endure. They said their father showed no remorse and had been indifferent from the beginning of the process or even portrayed himself as the victim.
Superior Court Justice Michel Pennou said it would be useless to consider reintegrating Lesage into society. He said the only option is to isolate him and impose a penalty that could serve as a deterrent to others.
The judge said Lesage ruined the lives of two of his daughters and turned the lives of the three children he fathered with one of them upside down. Pennou also said Lesage acted without heeding the consequences, and was only looking to satisfy his own sexual impulses.
Crown lawyers had asked for a 20- to 22-year prison sentence, arguing it was warranted by the nature of the violence, the decades of abuse committed against Lucie Lesage and his apparent lack of remorse.
Defence lawyer Antonio Cabral argued for a seven-year sentence, owing to Lesage's age and poor health.
Cabral said the 15-year sentence for incest is one of the most severe in Canadian history and he plans an appeal.
Man fathered daughter's 3 children
Lucie Lesage had told the court that she experienced more than 30 years of at-times constant sexual abuse, beginning when she was eight years old. She said her father kept her in a constant state of fear, and told her if she told anyone about the abuse, the police would take her from her family.
She had the first of his three children when she was 13 years old.
In her victim impact statement, she said she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and has never been able to have a normal relationship.
It wasn't until her mother had died and Lesage was an adult that she confided in one of her sisters, and found the courage to come forward to police in 2014.
She advised all abuse victims not to stay quiet.
"Don't hesitate," she said in French in an interview outside the courthouse. "Don't hesitate to denounce those who are trying to keep [their abuse] a secret."
2nd daughter left home as teen
After Lucie Lesage went to police, her sister followed suit.
Nathalie Lesage testified her father first molested her when she was five years old and first raped her when she was eight. She described a childhood spent in a state of perpetual panic that lasted until she left home as a teenager, and said the abuse ruined her life and she too battled PTSD and depression.
She told the court she wanted her father to get the maximum sentence.
After the sentencing, Nathalie said she was satisfied with the judge's decision and the condition that he be added to the sexual offenders registry.
"As long as he's alive, he'll be in the registry as a sexual predator. That's what he is, a sexual predator," she said in French.
Lesage denies some claims
In his own statement, Jacques Lesage continued to deny he had ever touched Nathalie, but acknowledged he abused Lucie.
He also denied abusing a third daughter who came forward, Chantal Knippenberg, now 45. Last Friday, the court found him not guilty of sexual assault and indecent assault in relation to Knippenberg.
Lesage has been incarcerated since he was first charged in 2014, and still faces two separate charges related to another victim: one charge of sexual assault and another charge of sexual interference with a minor.
That separate trial is expected to begin in June.
Outaouais, Quebec
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