A Newfoundland officer after seven years and three trials was sentenced to prison on Friday for sexually assaulting a woman on duty in 2014.
The woman ultimately after three trials first in 2017 was successfully appealed, and the second, in 2020, ended in a mistrial due to a judge’s error. Finally, on Friday legal proceedings came to a conclusion of punishing him.
While Const. Carl Douglas Snelgrove of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and Vikas Khaladkar read the sentence in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court and agreed for the justice. Vikas Khaladkar even commented that he must be registered as a sex offender for 20 years.
The victim, in December night she accepted Snelgrove’s offer of a ride home after she had been out dancing and drinking in downtown while keeping her identity protected by a publication ban. She filed her complain.
Khaladkar said while reading his reasoning for the sentence he says many victims do not come forward in her cirucmstances and if some do they are unable to continue.
The judge seeing her impact where is now living in the fear of anxiety and depression, she is taking overdose pills and she has to move away from St.John’s. She even feels unsafe in her own home. Her confident level has gone down. However jude agreed no sentence could relieve the woman of her trauma or its repercussions.
While studying the case Khaladkar noted that she trusted a uniformed police officer sitting in a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary cruiser as she felt uncomfortable in hiring a taxi where she felt she could have been assult sexually. But her trust and faith was devastated from a police officer.
“The sentence I impose today must send a message to other persons in positions of power and authority, in particular police officers,” Khaladkar said. However, he feels four year sentence is nothing against the pain of a lady.
Read More: Newfoundland police officer gets 4 years for sexually assaulting woman on-duty | Globalnews.ca
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A police officer from Newfoundland has been punished for four years for sexually assaulting a woman on duty.
