After listening to sentencing submissions on June 25, provincial court judge Karl Bazin said he will provide a decision on Aug. 11 in the case against 19-year-old Michael Joseph Tetlow, who was convicted of sexual assault against a 13-year-old girl earlier this year. He has been remanded in custody since June 5.
The Crown is suggesting a four-year jail sentence, while the defense is calling for an 18-month custodial term.
At Tetlow's hearing on Monday afternoon, the Crown explained how in 2012, Tetlow, who was 17 at the time, came in contact with the victim while playing the online computer game Minecraft. The two kept in contact via Skype and instant messaging applications for six months, and shortly after labelled themselves as an online couple, the Crown noted. Tetlow was under the assumption the girl on the other end was 16, until someone else, who was playing the game on the same server as him, told him the victim, was in fact, 12 at the time. Tetlow and the victim ceased their online relationship until November 2013, when they once again reconnected through the game. It was during this time that Tetlow decided to move to Banff, Alta. to pursue his passion for skiing and to become a ski instructor, but the Crown said he struggled with gang-related incidents regularly, so he decided to move to Estevan in April, where he knew the victim lived, and at this point, was 13 years old.
The Crown said Tetlow made a number of "very poor decisions," and his decision to move to Estevan to pursue further contact with the victim was a significant one. Upon his arrival to the city, the victim's mother suggested he stay with them, and to compensate for lodgings, he would do chores around the house. He accepted the offer, and Tetlow's relationship with the victim escalated over the six-week period he remained at her residence, and resulted in multiple sexual encounters.
The Crown acknowledged the fact that all sexual encounters were consensual, and the mother of the victim was aware of what was going on, and even bought condoms for them. The Crown continued, and said Tetlow had many opportunities to walk away from the situation, but chose not to.
The defense explained that Tetlow's intentions behind his move to Canada were never driven by his desire to meet the victim, and due to his limited resources upon his arrival in Estevan, the promise of a roof over his head was difficult to turn down.
The fact that Tetlow never forced the victim to do anything, was in a position of trust within her home, and the age difference between the two wasn't very big, were mitigating factors, said the defense, but still did not excuse the fact he had sex with a girl under the age of consent. The defense also noted that jail time was inevitable, but that certain aspects of the story should be taken into context, and that Tetlow didn't fit the description of a typical sex offender.
Tetlow was arrested approximately three Saturdays ago, a few days before he was planning on returning to New Zealand before his work permit expired in November. Tetlow and the victim decided to break up not long before that, after determining that their relationship wasn't going to work.
In other proceedings, Nathan Mullen, who was charged with the murder of Leslie Erin Dwyre last month, appeared via closed-circuit television from Regina on June 19. His case was adjourned to July 10, at 9:30 a.m.
