Accused who assaulted sleeping woman had five previous convictions in Fort Good Hope
Katherine Hudson
Northern News Services
Published Monday, February 18, 2013
RADILIH KOE’/FORT GOOD HOPE
A 58-year-old man was sentenced to two years less a day for committing a sexual assault on an 18-year-old sleeping woman in Fort Good Hope on Aug. 4, 2012.
This is the sixth sexual assault in the community of Fort Good Hope by Stanley Cook. He received a global sentence of almost two-and-a-half years for five sexual assaults on sleeping or passed out victims in 2005.
In the most recent assault, Fort Good Hope RCMP responded to a complaint at 7:15 a.m. from a woman who said she had been sexually assaulted at a house party two hours earlier.
The victim was tired in the early morning hours and went to sleep in a bedroom at the house, while a number of other people continued to consume alcohol. She told police she thought she was dreaming that someone was touching her. However, she woke up and discovered Cook was assaulting her. She told him to stop and he did and left the room.
At 9:30 a.m., Cook, who was intoxicated, was located and held in cells until he was sober. That night he admitted his guilt to RCMP.
“This was a crime of opportunity,” said Crown prosecutor Jen Bond on Feb. 7 in territorial court in Yellowknife, adding sexual assault on a sleeping or passed our victim is prevalent in the NWT.
The Crown suggested three-and-a-half to four years in custody while defence counsel Paul Falvo said that sentence was “excessive.”
He said Cook was physically and sexually abused in residential school and when he was home, he was in a world of alcoholism – never allowing him to learn how to take care of himself.
Falvo said Cook has been proactive in attempting to heal himself through counselling at Yellowknife’s Healing Drum Society and the Tree of Peace. Cook also completed a 28-day residential treatment program for alcohol addiction in Hay River since November. He attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and also started an Alcoholics Anonymous group in Fort Good Hope, said Falvo, adding the early guilty plea spared the victim needing to testify at a trial.
On Feb. 8, Judge Christine Gagnon sentenced Cook to two years less a day and two years of probation upon his release. She asked for him to serve his sentence at the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre in Hay River where there are aboriginal cultural programs.
“Even a single slip in his case is scary,” said Gagnon about Cook’s night of drinking in Fort Good Hope in August after he had been attempting to live a sober life.
“It’s absolutely essential that you remain alcohol-free in order to not re-offend.”
Cook addressed the court before his sentencing and said he prays every morning and leaves his traumatic residential school experiences behind him.
“I accept what I’ve done. If I could give her back her innocence, I would … I passed on to her what happened to me … The abuse took my humanity away,” he said.
http://nnsl.com/northern-news-services/stories/papers/feb18_13crt.html
Reeva Steenkamp, inspiring woman who ‘broke the model stereotype’
Oscar Pistorius’s girlfriend was a law graduate and entrepreneur who had been due to give a talk on motivation to schoolchildren on Thursday
The woman shot dead in South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius’s house had been a model, a law school graduate and an entrepreneur committed to empowering women.
Reeva Steenkamp, who was to have given a talk on Thursday at a Johannesburg school, had become a celebrity in her own right, said publicist Sarit Tomlinson. She was one of FHM magazine’s 100 Sexiest Women in the World for two years running, appeared in international and South African advertisements and was a celebrity contestant on Tropika Island of Treasure, a South African reality show. She was also the South African face of Avon cosmetics.
She was “continuously breaking the model stereotype”, Tomlinson said, adding that Steenkamp was “the sweetest, kindest, just angelic soul” and “a very inspiring individual, very passionate about speaking about women and empowerment”.
Police said she was shot four times in the early hours of Valentine’s Day. They said only Steenkamp and Pistorius were at his house in a gated complex in Pretoria, the capital. Police have arrested Pistorius on a charge of murder and said he will appear in court on Friday. The two had been dating for a few months.
Scores of tributes were posted online. Her publicist said Steenkamp was 29 but police said she was 30.
On Thursday morning Steenkamp had been scheduled to give a motivational speech to school students in Johannesburg. “It was about empowerment and inspiration and what inspires you and how to follow your dreams,” said Tomlinson, who had Steenkamp’s notes for the speech.
On Twitter Steenkamp posted messages urging women to stand up against rape as well as her excitement about Valentine’s Day.
“What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow?” she tweeted. “It should be a day of love for everyone.”
Her last tweet was an enthusiastic acceptance of a friend’s invitation to celebrate the day with chocolate cupcakes topped with red hearts.
She also used her Twitter account to encourage her thousands of followers to combat sexual abuse and violence against women.
“WEAR BLACK THIS FRIDAY IN SUPPORT AGAINST #RAPE,” she retweeted hours before she died.
Steenkamp tweeted four days ago as outrage was sparked in South Africa by the particularly brutal rape and murder of a 17-year-old: “I woke up in a happy safe home this morning. Not everyone did. Speak out against the rape of individuals in SA. RIP Anene Booysen #rape #crime #sayNO.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/14/reeva-steenkamp-inspiring-model