Disclaimer: This article deals with a sexual assault and contains some graphic details.
A defence lawyer could only describe the behaviour of his client, who broke into a South Okanagan man’s home and sexually assaulted him, as “bizarre.”
Deborah Ann Childs, 43, pleaded guilty to one break and enter and one count of sexual assault as well as multiple breaches of court orders and was sentenced in Penticton Provincial Court Dec. 22.
On July 16, 2015 Childs knocked on the door of an elderly South Okanagan man’s home and after he opened the door to see what she wanted, she walked right in.
Childs was unknown to the resident, and offered him oral sex for $3 before lifting her shirt and touching herself. After Childs grabbed the man’s crotch, he declined her sexual advances. The man continued to tell Childs to leave the residence as she walked around the home, picked up some cash off his counter and checked the medicine cabinet in the bathroom before leaving on a bicycle.
Childs yelled “I’ve got to use your phone,” repeatedly before the man answered the door. She also told the man she needed money because her mother was in the hospital.
Childs was on bail at the time of the offence, awaiting sentencing on a prior charge.
A publication ban was ordered protecting the identity of the victim.
“I do not recall that, at all, that one,” Childs told the court, appearing via video, maintaining she could not remember many of her offences and they occurred after she was subject to a seizure.
However, a report to determine whether or not Childs was not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder stated that her claimed lack of memory due to her seizure disorder was not credible, and was more indicative of a drug-induced state.
“The best way to describe her behaviours over the last few years is bizarre,” said defence counsel James Pennington.
Her substance abuse disorder began when Childs was 11 years old, court heard, and she was the victim of a violent rape in 2003 resulting in a week-long coma.
Childs was convicted of another break and enter after a trial in June, 2015, where she entered an Osoyoos woman’s home in an attempt to steal the homeowner’s wallet in January, 2015. Childs fled when she was confronted by the homeowner.
Judge Greg Koturbash noted a day earlier Judge Gail Sinclair called Paul Kooistra, who was sentenced to over a year in jail after two break-ins, the “poster boy” of drug-related property crime, calling Childs the “poster girl.”
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Childs was sentenced to just under three years in jail.