B.C. man sentenced for sexual assault of 13-year-old girl

Anthony Jacob Dean Collins. Courtesy: Fort St. John RCMP.

Warning: This story contains details about the sexual assault of a child.

A B.C. man who sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl and shared video of the attack on Snapchat has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Anthony Collins pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault and the sentence was handed down in B.C. Supreme Court in Fort St. John last month.

An agreed statement of facts summarizes the details of the case.

Collins was 20 when he met the victim, referred to as "D.V." throughout the decision due to a publication ban protecting her identity. The two met through Snapchat and D.V. told Collins she was 13.

About a month after their first online interaction, Collins drove to Fort St. John with a friend and picked up D.V., whom he had instructed to lie and say she was 16, the decision says.

The two, along with several others, went to a pub and then picked up alcohol and went to a house party, the court heard.

"During the party, Mr. Collins had sexual intercourse with D.V. while she was intoxicated. This occurred in a bathroom and was video recorded on a cell phone," according to the statement of facts says.

Later that night, Collins sexually assaulted the victim again – this time in the living room in front of multiple people who watched the attack and recorded video, the court documents say, noting Collins said "who's next" while committing the assault.

"The videos were later shown to multiple people and posted on a Snapchat group which was viewed by an unknown number of people," the decision says.

The filming and sharing of these videos was considered an aggravating factor in the case because it "perpetuated the harm inflicted," the judge said.

Some of that harm was described in a victim impact statement that D.V. read to the court at the sentencing hearing, which the judge summarized in the decision.

"She described the pain she has felt since the incident, and how alone she felt. She described how she found it impossible to go to school for the three years since the incident, and how difficult it was for her to focus on her studies. She reminded the court of how she was just a child at the time of the assault, and is still a child at 15 years old today. She expressed fear that she would have difficulty trusting another man," Justice Anita Chan wrote.

"D.V. was eloquent in how she addressed the court, and in my view, showed great strength in coming forward."

The guilty plea was the primary mitigating factor.

The decision also notes that Collins has been in custody since April 25, which was five days after the RCMP put out a public appeal for help locating him, saying at the time he was wanted on multiple charges.

A spokesperson for the BC Prosecution Service confirmed that Collins was charged with sexual assault, sexual interference, making child pornography and possessing child pornography and that all of those charges related to the attack on D.V.

"At the conclusion of sentencing for the sexual assault charge, the other charges were stayed," an emailed statement to CTV News says.

Collins' three-year sentence was jointly recommended by Crown and defence and Chan said she found no reason to depart from it.

"The proposed sentence would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute and would not otherwise be contrary to the public interest," she wrote.

In addition to prison time, Collins will also have to submit a DNA sample and will be on the sex offender registry for 20 years.