It's a sad, sad state of affairs I tell you.
On one hand we see a young girl looking at life in prison for stopping on the highway to save the lives of a family of ducks and on the other, we see a man who chained up a 16 year old boy for 10 days and raped him repeatedly get just two years behind bars. What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with the people making these decisions? And better yet, how can we change things around?
It's been ridiculous lately, the things we have been seeing happen in Canada's courts. You can cut the head off a sleeping bus passenger, murder your children or some other innocent victim and walk away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, but heaven forbid you try to do a kind deed. Unreal.
Sixty-five year old John MacKeen from Nova Scotia has just been sentenced to two years behind bars for a crime that is unthinkable, sparking rage across the country, and rightly so.
From what I understand, MacKeen reportedly paid two men to kidnap a 16 year old boy. Tying him up and gagging him, he held him prisoner and raped him at whim for 10 days. He claims the acts were consensual. Really?
Understandably so, the teen has been left traumatized. No doubt forever.
The mother of the victim says her son - now 17 - carries machetes around the house because he thinks he needs to protect himself. He puts large knives in her room also, thinking she needs protection, too, and she says peace has disappeared from their lives. The teen suffers daily outbursts of anger and sobbing, he's suicidal "and he lives in such a state of despair and relives his ordeal" and what was done to him.
His mom says, "Not only did you rape a young boy... but you raped his body, you raped his soul, you raped his future, and that is something that cannot be fixed and I am left with trying to pick up the pieces of his shattered life..."
Meanwhile, MacKeen will be held in protective custody, fed three square meals a day and be back on the streets in two short years.
How truly sad. I don't care how nice of a guy he appeared to his friends, family and neighbors, this is a sick individual who deserves a far worse fate.
Like most Canadians, I'm sick and tired of hearing outcomes like this. Tough on crime you say? I would beg to differ.
