A former Hamilton police officer will not go to jail for sexually assaulting the woman he was mentoring as she pursued her own career in policing.
Michael LaCombe, 54, will instead serve 12 months of house arrest followed by 12 months of probation after Justice Cameron Watson found him guilty of two counts of sexual assault in January, following a trial.
Watson sentenced LaCombe on Monday at the Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines, Ont., describing his crimes and the aftermath as “a spectacular and cataclysmic fall from grace” in his written decision.
“His life has taken an irreparable downward spiral. He is no longer the man he once was,” Watson wrote.
Watson also described how LaCombe’s conduct “devastated” the victim, who has felt isolated and suffers from panic attacks, among other impacts, in recent years.
“His life has taken an irreparable downward spiral. He is no longer the man he once was,” Watson wrote.
That is not a valid reason to allow a rapist to escape jail time.
ACAB
But what if he’s super duper sorry??? /s
Fuck this “his downfall was his punishment,” shit.
That’s what we get when we have a punishment system, rather than a justice system. This guy has had his feel bad, so everyone’s square!
Public safety? No thank you! We’re here to trade mildly reduced visual clarity for an eye!
Sexual assault, yes. Rape, no.
He removed her shirt and bra and kissed her without consent. No intercourse (including the standard variants thereof) occurred. She protested, and he drove her home.
That’s basic sexual assault based on the legal definitions (there are two higher definitions for using weapons or causing bodily harm) and there is no legal minimum for basic sexual assault (of an adult)
The pig should be in jail, and you shouldn’t be making excuses for him.
I’m not making excuses, I’m being specific and correct. Rape (which isn’t defined in the Canadian criminal code) has a very clear definition understood by the public (and defined in law elsewhere) as requiring penetration of some sort.
You’re actually defaming him (and therefore guilty of libel under Canadian Criminal law) for accusing him of something which is not true and could harm his reputation further.
In your opinion, how many years of jail should be given to someone who kisses another person without their consent? Or does that part of this situation not warrant jail time? Should there be a mandatory minimum for any form of sexual assault? How many years then for the more serious offence of removing someone’s shirt and bra without their consent?
who kisses another person without their consent
You are seriously are doubling down on defending people who sexually assault people. No consent is assault and that can get you jail time.
The pig was in a position of power and is supposed to be better than the average person.
I’m not defaming him, as it’s my opinion that he is a pig and deserves jail time for his actions.
Edit: either a lot of people don’t know what defamation is, or they are hand waving sexual assault.
I’m being specific and correct.
You’re being pedantic. Caring more about the rules of language than the fact a woman’s life has been decimated by a rapey cop doesn’t help your argument.
The law is very pedantic.
and I’m not making an argument, I’m just clarifying terminology.
You just fucking said you weren’t making a legal argument, that the term was not defined in the law in the relevant jurisdiction. But now that you realize you’ve crawled out too far on a shaky limb, you’re still turning to “it’s not my opinion, it’s just the law!”
Doesn’t work that way.
And placing your perception of language over and above that of a woman whose life has been devastated by a fucking cop.
Maybe you could place what happened as more important than the specific language used.
TF you on about bro? This is up there with people going well aktually epehobphila isn’t pedophila or some shit.
Sexual Assault is rape. Fin.
No its not. Rape is a subcategory of Sexual Assault not the other way around. What this guy did was wrong. He is (probably) facing too light of a punishment for it (article says the crown wanted double). I’m just not an expert on these matters at all. But he didn’t rape her. Period.
If writing fictional stories about teenagers having sex should result in being a sex offender, why is George R. R. Martin allowed in Canada? Game of Thrones (the books) have multiple graphic passages about the rape of minors, Sansa was 12 years old in the books. Even in the show, which aired in Canada, she was still underage.
Your logic is flawed, writing fictional stories shouldn’t be a criminal offense, and even with it being illegal in Canada it isn’t applied equally.
Rape is sexual assault, sexual assault is not always rape. Just like an apple is a fruit, but not all fruits are apples.
Words matter, and yours aren’t correct. They don’t align with legal definitions in countries that define rape, with the common dictionary definitions, or with the common public understanding of the word.
iT’s OnLy RaPe If He GoT hIs DiCk WeT
Dear god. Listen to yourself.
Like, straight up, if you’re playing apologetics for a fucking cop who sexually assaulted someone by trying to well-akshually rape, you need to deeply probe your motivations there. Because I promise you, you don’t have good ones.
Exactly, I’ve had my dick grabbed/felt up, and had people try to strip me. It’s assault, not rape.
Both are bad and should be punished, but one is way worse. By calling all sexual assaults rape, it almost feels like it’s eroding the word “rape” to something lesser.
This predator needs to be punished.
That’s exploiting a power dynamic to force themself sexually on an unwilling person. That’s rape. Laws don’t define words, it does not matter what the definition of the crime of the same name is, that woman was raped.
This man’s rape conviction has ruined his life, that is punishment enough. -A lot of judges apparently
Cut to this man being hired at another department while he under house arrest. He gets work release and bam, rapist cop back out on the street, even while on probation.
He will rape again.
We want the same penalties for everyone who commits a crime. It should never matter what the criminals job is nor how much money they make. The same penalties should apply to EVERYONE!!!
Unfortunately this is consistent with other sexual assault sentences here. From what I’ve seen anyway. Purely anecdotal. Raped and ruined your own children and complicated their lives for all time? 8 months for you. And out for good behaviour in 4. Justice served /s
In most cases yes. However in the cases of fines poor people are more penalized than wealthy, so there should be some proportional consideration there.
Just use a percentage. X% of net worth would be interesting.
Not too much of a shock.
