Port Hardy man gets six years for sexual assault

• Advice: This story describes details of a sexual assault.

A Port Hardy man has been sentenced to six years in prison for forcing his way into a woman’s home and sexually assaulting her three years ago.

Ronald David Louie Walkus, 40, was found guilty in February of breaking and entering and sexually assaulting the woman in her Port Hardy home.

The victim, named DW in a criminal judgment because her identity is protected by a publication ban, testified that Walkus knocked on her front door on October 20, 2021 around 11 p.m. When she asked who was at the door, he said: “It’s Ronnie,” the decision states.

DW did not know Walkus personally, but had heard of him.

She told Walkus that he was not welcome in her apartment and had to leave, but he forced his way in.

Walkus forced DW into her bedroom and pinned her to the bed, removing her clothes as she struggled and screamed for help. He forced sexual intercourse without DW’s consent.

Walkus left her apartment after DW said she called the police. Port Hardy RCMP officers arrived around 12:20 p.m. and did not find Walkus in the apartment.

DW went to Port McNeill hospital for forensic examination by a sexual assault nurse, who recovered Walkus’ DNA from DW’s vagina. The likely source of the DNA was semen, the decision said.

Walkus did not deny these details, but his attorney argued during the trial that he and DW were in a relationship and that he regularly used alcohol and crack cocaine, which led to blackouts.

Walkus accepted that he sexually assaulted DW but believed it happened during a blackout and said he had no memory of the event.

Judge Jan Brongers of the BC Supreme Court wrote in his ruling that Walkus’ arguments were contradicted by DW’s testimony and not supported by evidence.

“I do not accept that any of them have been proven for sentencing purposes,” he wrote.

In a written victim statement, DW says that she has been in constant fear in public since the attack. She said she struggles with anxiety and panic, which is why she has undergone counseling. She is afraid that Walkus will come to work or home.

The Crown recommended a sentence of six to eight years, while the defense said a sentence of four to five and a half years would be more appropriate.

In sentencing Walkus to six years in prison, Brongers took into account factors set out in a Gladue report, a pre-sentencing report prepared for an Indigenous offender that contains information about their background, including history relating to residential schools, abuse, removal of child welfare and underlying developmental disorders. problems, such as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Walkus had a difficult childhood in a ‘household plagued by alcoholism, poverty, abuse and neglect’, according to Brongers’ sentence.

He and his siblings were in and out of foster care from an early age, and he experienced physical and sexual abuse, and witnessed violence by his father and uncles toward their husbands.

Walkus has struggled with alcohol addiction and bouts of heavy crack cocaine use throughout his adult life. He has been sober while in custody but admits he will likely immediately return to substance use if there is any delay between his release from prison and treatment.

“He recognizes that he must improve himself so that he does not end up back in ‘the system’ upon his eventual release from prison,” the decision said.

An aggravating factor for the conviction was Walkus’ criminal record, which includes 63 convictions, the first when he was 19 years old and the most recent a conviction for sexual assault that occurred three months before the attack on DW.

The convictions include sexual and violent crimes, burglary, drug-related crimes and property crimes.

At sentencing, Walkus expressed remorse for the consequences of his actions for DW and apologized.

Walkus’ sentence will be reduced by credit for time served since he was taken into custody on May 30, 2023. His remaining sentence is approximately four years and nine months.

Walkus must provide a DNA sample, is prohibited from possessing firearms and other weapons and must register with the police as a sex offender for life.

(email protected)