Taloyoak man’s sex-crime sentence won’t be extended

A court has dismissed the Crown’s appeal of a sentence given to a Taloyoak man convicted in 2021 on four counts of sexual interference involving a person under 16 years of age.

In a decision released Tuesday, the Nunavut Court of Appeal dismissed the Crown’s action, which called for a lengthier sentence for Darren Pauloosie, who was 20 at the time the incidents occurred in January and February 2017.

In its judgment, the court outlined the circumstances of the case: Four times during that period, Pauloosie invited the complainant — who was a 12-year-old girl at the time — over to his home. Each time, Pauloosie had been drinking.

In 2019, Pauloosie was charged with four counts of sexual interference which, the court said, involves a person touching for a sexual purpose, either directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or an object someone who is under the age of 16.

Pauloosie pleaded not guilty.

At his trial in 2021, the trial judge wasn’t satisfied Pauloosie had done enough to discover the age of the complainant before the incidents occurred, the appeal court judges wrote in a 15-page decision.

Pauloosie was sentenced to jail time of two years less a day on all four counts, to be served concurrently, followed by two years’ probation.

At the time, the Crown originally called for a sentence of four to seven years, later reducing that to four to five years.

Pauloosie’s lawyer asked for the same sentence that was eventually handed down by the trial judge.

In its appeal heard Feb. 15, the Crown asked that Pauloosie’s sentence be increased to four to five years imprisonment, maintaining the trial judge failed to give adequate consideration to deterrence and denunciation of the crime.