Disabled "man" gets 14 day sentence

[P.O.]

Disabled man gets 14-day term for child pornography

Won't be placed on sex offender registry


January 4, 2012 3:08 AM


A severely disabled man who aspires to be a teacher was sentenced to
the mandatory minimum of 14 days in jail Tuesday for possessing child
pornography.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny said she wouldn't have
sentenced a wheelchair-bound Dominique Rocque to any time behind bars
if the law did not require it.

Ratushny ruled that the immense cognitive difficulties Rocque suffered
as a result of a Christmas Eve crash in 1997 when he was 17 years old
reduced his moral blameworthiness for the crime.

Ratushny said Rocque's circumstances "cry out" for judicial discretion
but her hands were tied because of the mandatory minimum sentence.

Rocque, 31, was arrested in July 2007 after offering to swap child
pornography with an undercover FBI agent in Pittsburgh. Ottawa police
later searched his computer and found 168 child porn videos along with
20 images.

Rocque spent three weeks in a coma following the crash. He suffered
severe brain injuries and was left confined to a wheelchair.

"It is not for me to judge the wisdom of Parliament in determining
this crime deserves a jail sentence for all offenders," said Ratushny,
who also declined to place Rocque on the national sex offender
registry.

"To impose any more than the mandatory minimum in these circumstances
would be entirely inappropriate and unjust," she added.

An apologetic Rocque - who had graduated from teacher's college and
was qualified to teach high school French at the time of his arrest -
told Ratushny he felt he had already served his debt to society in a
"prisonlike" situation.

The electric wheelchair is his "warden," he added.