Three weeks after a man convicted of sexual assault fled to Pakistan, he was sentenced in absentia to two years and nine months in prison.
Moazzam Tariq, 29, was convicted of raping a woman too intoxicated to consent due in part to surveillance videos that show him plying the victim with alcohol as she became increasingly drunk, and taking her to a hotel room.
Tariq’s interactions with the victim in the short time at the bar after they first met show an “ongoing disrespect for women and his desire to objectify them,” Ontario Court Justice Mara Greene said Monday.
“Mr. Tariq knew how intoxicated the victim was and continued to give her more alcohol despite knowing how drunk she already was, therefore showing a disregard for her general safety,” Greene said.
He was aware when leaving the bar, and at the hotel that the victim lacked the capacity to consent but continued to book a room, forged her name on the check-in form and sexually assaulted her.
“He took deliberate and planned steps to take advantage of the situation,” Greene said.
There is a publication ban on the identity of the victim.
It is unusual to proceed with a sentencing without the offender, Greene said, but she found it was necessary in this case to allow the victim to move forward with her life.
Greene referred to the statement the victim provided to the court, acknowledging the immense trauma she experienced and now has to live with due to Tariq’s actions.
“I stopped going to clubs. I stopped drinking. I stopped hanging out with my friends. I stopped going out. I pulled back from my family. I stopped being myself,” Greene
“It is difficult to imagine that feeling of stopping to be who you are because of someone else’s callous violence towards you,” Greene said. “The blame lies solely with the defendant. It does not lie with the victim. (She) has no reason to feel shame.”
The Crown did not ask Greene to consider Tariq’s flight as part of his sentence. If he is found and returned to Canada, that would be dealt with separately, court has heard.
Tariq was released on bail and permitted to remain on bail following his conviction without the court knowing he’d fled the country once before in 2010 after he was charged with dangerous driving causing bodily harm in Peel Region. In that case, he returned to Canada a year later and was convicted and sentenced.
That information had not been recorded in the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC), the central database used to look up criminal records. As a result, Toronto police and the Crown were given an incomplete criminal record.
“It was a problem in this case, but in general terms we just work around it” by using internal records or checking with other jurisdictions if a record seems dated, said investigating officer Det. Anthony Williams on Monday. “It needs to change.”
Tariq, a permanent resident of Canada, was required to surrender his Pakistani passport to the police — but he gave them an expired passport that had been forged to look current, Williams said.
He added that, to his knowledge, CPIC is not checked when people leave the country.
Tariq’s surety, his father Mohmood Tariq, is expected to have a hearing next year over whether he should forfeit the $10,000 he put up for his son’s bail.
https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/...d-for-sex-assault-despite-fleeing-canada.html
