RCMP Watch

James Foster, Moncton, N.B. (Times & Transcript) - A former Codiac Regional RCMP officer who molested his own young relatives over decades was handed a four-year term in federal penitentiary yesterday.

The name of the man, 52, is banned from publication by court order. When Crown attorney William Richards asked for the usual ban on the publication of any information that could identify the victims in the case, it prompted defence lawyer James Letcher to ask the court to extend that ban to the accused’s name, given that one of the seven sex charges was attempted incest. The Crown said nothing when asked by Judge Irwin Lampert if he objected to a publication ban extending to the man’s name.

In all, the man preyed on two daughters, one son, one grandson and two nephews starting in the 1980s and ending last year.

Provincial court Judge Irwin Lampert called the victims’ statements “absolutely heartbreaking.”

Richards and Letcher made a joint submission for the four-year sentence, which Lampert agreed to considering the man’s lack of a criminal record and quick guilty pleas to all seven charges which saved the devastated victims from having to publicly testify about the abuse. The accused declined an offer to address the court.

The former police officer who worked in Moncton as well as outside the province had attempted suicide when the matters came to light and has spent weeks as a psychiatric inpatient and still requires medication. His career as a cop came to an end at that time as well.

The incidents occurred around the province as well as outside New Brunswick.

They included attempting to commit incest on his daughter who he tried to have sexual intercourse with when she was in Grade 1 in the 1980s. He stopped when she screamed during his attempt.

The details of another charge stated that between 1988 and 1991, the man would drive around and convince the child to fondle him.

Two other charges involved him bathing two sisters and one brother. The man got into the tub with the children and got them to touch him sexually, and then to touch each other.

Another time he fondled his four-year-old grandson.

Two other charges stemmed from fondling very young male relatives, including an incident of oral sex. None of the victims were older than 10 years old when the incidents occurred and the youngest victim was age four.

Letcher stressed how, as a former officer and a current sex offender, the man would have a very rough time while behind bars where other inmates consider those two types of offenders the very worst and treat them accordingly. The defence also argued the court should order authorities to place the man in a special sex-offender’s rehabilitation facility inside Dorchester Penitentiary, but the court declined to do so, with Lampert saying prison authorities would be the best judge of where the man should serve his time.

As he was sentenced, the man gave a heavy sigh and was immediately escorted to jail by sheriff’s deputies. The man has already submitted a sample of his DNA to the national crime databank and has registered as a sex offender.