Iqaluit man guilty of assaulting 11-year-old over missing vodka

An Iqaluit man who lashed out at his 11-year-old daughter after he suspected her of stealing his vodka is guilty of assaulting the child, Justice Robert Kilpatrick ruled in a written judgment Aug. 4.

“The defendant’s testimony is rife with minimization and denial. These are the sad trademarks of an alcoholic,” Kilpatrick said of the man’s testimony, given at a trial held July 19 in Iqaluit.

The man, known only as “PP,” had been drinking Smirnoff vodka with two adult relatives for two or three hours in his living room on the evening of Aug. 18, 2010.

The two relatives left sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 that evening. One of them, a cousin, picked up his bottle of Smirnoff and took it with him.

Meanwhile, the man’s 11-year-old daughter, known only as “AB,” had retreated to her father’s bedroom to watch television while the adults drank.

In evidence given in court, AB said her father entered the bedroom at around 3:30 a.m. and accused her of stealing the bottle.

AB said her father became “very angry,” grabbed her arm, and struck her hard on the forehead with an open palm.

She also said her father tried to bite her on the cheek, but did not succeed.

The violence ended when a stranger, alarmed by the sound of the girl’s screams, entered the house and called the police soon after.

“These were no ordinary screams. They were sufficiently loud and frantic enough to attract the attention of a passerby,” Kilpatrick said.

In his defence, PP said in court that he passed out in his bedroom at around 12:30 a.m. When he woke up, he claimed he saw his daughter running away with a cup that he thought contained two ounces of liquor.

But he said he did not hit his daughter, but that he did restrain her on his lap. He explained the bruises on her face as likely having been caused by an accident.

Kilpatrick, however, said he believed the child’s evidence over that given by her father and has “no confidence” in the reliability of PP’s story.

“The defendant minimized the extent of his drinking and he minimized the extent of upset to his daughter. She was not just crying, she was screaming. This screaming was sufficiently loud and persistent to attract the attention of another citizen,” Kilpatrick said.

He also said the girl was appeared to be motivated by a desire to tell the truth and not by a desire to get her father out of her life.

“There is nothing in the evidence to suggest that AB might have had a reason to deliberately distort the evidence. To the contrary, this witness loved her dad. She still does,” Kilpatrick said.

The child had decided to live with her father about two years before the incident and had “become accustomed to heavy drinking within the home,” the judgment said. Her mother and father had broken up in 2006.

He also found PP guilty of breaching an earlier undertaking to abstain from the possession or consumption of alcohol.

The man has yet to be sentenced.