Nunavut court: Man gets six years for “campaign of terror and torture”
Accused regarded spouse as “his property to do with as he wished”
At a May 21 hearing at the Nunavut Court of Justice Iqaluit, Justice Bonnie Tulloch gave an oral sentencing judgment to Jonathan Arloo of Arviat that was distributed in writing May 25. (FILE PHOTO)
Editor’s note: This story contains details that some readers may find disturbing.
Jonathan Arloo, a young man from Arviat, will serve a six-year prison sentence for a sexually degrading barrage of assaults on his spousal partner that Justice Bonnie Tulloch described as “among the most disturbing that I have ever heard in this court.”
Arloo, whose exact age is not given, was convicted this past April in Rankin Inlet on two counts of aggravated assault, one count of sexual assault, one count of failing to comply with an undertaking, one count of failing to comply with a recognizance and one count of counseling to commit suicide.
“The Crown prosecutor, in her submissions, described this case as being one where the accused launched a campaign of terror and torture upon his common law spouse. I cannot describe it any better than that,” Tulloch said in her judgment.
At a May 21 hearing at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit, Tulloch gave an oral sentencing judgment that was distributed in writing May 25.
In it, she said the court heard that Arloo’s attacks on his spouse started April 4, 2012.
After accusing her of “cheating” on him, he stuck the index finger of his right hand into her mouth and tore the flesh of her right cheek, inflicting a wound that required 10 stitches.
She spent three days in hospital and will carry a permanent scar.
Two days later, police arrested Arloo and charged him with aggravated assault. The next day he was released from custody — under a court order to have no direct or indirect contact with his victim.
But Arloo breached that undertaking. That didn’t come to light until this past Dec. 4, when police were called to the Arviat health centre and took a statement from the woman.
There, they learned of Arloo’s brutal efforts, which had begun six months earlier, in August, to sexually degrade and control the young woman
In a violation of the court order earlier imposed on him in April, Arloo started seeing his spouse again.
The campaign of violence that ensued after he began seeing her in August included strangling her until she lost her sight and hearing.
In another incident, after they began to have consensual sex, he accused her of cheating on him and forced his fist into her vagina, an event that she described as “the worst pain she had ever felt.” After he withdrew his hand, he punched her vagina repeatedly.
In a statement to police, Arloo said he did it because he wanted to shock her into listening to him.
“The RCMP indicated that [the complainant] appeared to suffer emotional trauma from this incident because she kept returning to it a number of times in her statement to the police and she focused a lot on how much it hurt her,” Tulloch said.
In the next incident, Dec. 2, he punched her in the head and once again began punching her hard in the vagina.
Arloo said he did it because “he wanted her to start listening to him,” Tulloch said.
Later on Dec. 2, Arloo took a string from his pants, handed it to her, and told her to kill herself with it.
She agreed to do this, but told him she didn’t know how to tie knots or use the string “so if she was going to do it she needed to use a knife,” Tulloch said.
After getting a knife from the cupboard, Arloo told her to insert it in her vagina “so she could feel what it was like to cheat on him.”
He stopped her from doing that — but grabbed her nostrils with his fingers and pulled her around the house.
Arloo also threatened to kill her, her family, and any man she was involved with.
For all the offences committed after August 2012, Arloo was supposed to have been bound by an undertaking to have no contact with his victim.
Tulloch said in her judgment that Arloo established total dominance and control over his vulnerable, terrified victim.
“It is clear from the facts that, at least at the time of these offences, Mr. Arloo considered [the complainant] to be his property to do with as he wished. It is trite but necessary to make it very clear that no human being is owned by another. Slavery was abolished in this country many years ago,” Tulloch said.
Tulloch’s six-year sentence is based on a joint submission from Crown and defence lawyers.
Judges are not allowed to reject a joint submission unless “it is contrary to the public interest, unreasonable, unfit, or would bring the administration of justice into disrepute,” Tulloch said.
She deducted about five and a half months from his six-year sentence for time served waiting for the charged to be dealt with in court.
That means his total sentence as of this May 21 is five years plus six and a half months, Tulloch ruled.
Arloo will be eligible for parole after serving one half of his sentence, she said.
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