By Olufemi Shodunke ( Canada )
An Ontario Supreme Court of Justice has sentenced a 62-year-old man, Bradley Britton, to eight years’ imprisonment for sexually assaulting two women nearly four decades ago.
Britton, who carried out the assaults in 1987 and 1993 in Toronto and Oakville respectively, was convicted after fresh evidence and advanced forensic investigation linked him to the crimes.
Justice Conlan, while delivering the judgment last Wednesday, described the incidents as “historical offences” but stressed that the severity of the assaults demanded punishment despite the passage of time.
“The gravity of these two offences is very significant. The degree of responsibility of this offender, Britton, is very high,” Justice Conlan declared.
The court records revealed that Britton first attacked victim N.G., a 28-year-old mother of three, on May 23, 1987, when he broke into her Toronto home in the early hours of the morning.
He allegedly threatened her with a knife and sexually assaulted her while her one-year-old daughter slept beside her and her husband and two other daughters were in the next room.
“The family was asleep in their apartment on Jane Street. The couple’s 1-year-old daughter was sleeping in the bed beside the victim. The husband and the couple’s two older daughters, 5 and 9 years old, were asleep in the adjacent room,” the court record disclosed.
Six years later, Britton ambushed another victim, A.N., a 20-year-old woman, as she walked home in Oakville in 1993. According to the court, he had been hiding behind a gravestone before attacking her. After the assault, he threatened her to keep silent.
“When he was finished with her, Britton told the victim to count to 20 before she moved. He told her not to tell anyone and that he would be watching her. He then left the area,” the record stated.
Justice Conlan sentenced Britton to five years’ imprisonment for the first offence and three years for the second, making a “global sentence” of eight years.
He noted that the punishments were deliberately tempered to reflect mitigating factors but insisted the seriousness of the crimes required a custodial sentence.
“Notwithstanding the passage of time and all of the extensive materials filed by the defence, I am of the opinion that a significant penitentiary sentence is the only reasonable disposition in this case,” the judge ruled.
Britton, who had a history of drug and alcohol abuse, had lived without committing further crimes since the assaults. However, he was eventually identified in 2023 through a determined investigation by Toronto and Halton police, assisted by a genealogy laboratory in Texas, USA.
Justice Conlan concluded that the sentence was a “fit one” given the nature of the offences and their impact on the victims.
