Bandmate of Former Canadian PM Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison for Sexually Abusing 13-Year-Old

By Joanna Rothkopf  |  January 4, 2016 | 10:00pm
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On Monday, Phillip Nolan, teacher and former bandmate of Canadian ex-prime minister Stephen Harper, was sentenced to two years in prison for two counts of “sexual interference” with a 13-year-old girl, according to the Ottawa Sun.

In February 2014, Nolan, a former seventh and eighth grade teacher, was charged with five counts each of sexual assault, sexual interference, and sexual exploitation of a minor in connection with incidents involving two girls in 1990 and 2000.

CBC reports:

He was ordered to submit a DNA sample, was put on the sex offender registry for life and is banned from owning weapons for 10 years…
As part of bail conditions issued in February 2014, he was banned from being alone with anyone under the age of 16, unless that person was with a legal guardian.

Meanwhile, Tony Spears, the reporter who covered the sentence for the Ottawa Sun, recently referred to the abuse as a “tryst,” earning him the rightful ire of the internet.

The term “sexual interference” refers to “every person who, for a sexual purpose, touches, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, any part of the body of a person under the age of 16 years.” The minimum punishment is a year in prison.

Judge Ann Alder called the abuse “a parent’s worst nightmare.”

“Child sexual abuse is not something that happens because a 29-year-old man and a 13-year-old child hit it off,” she said in her ruling, referring to a pre-sentence report in which Nolan was quoted as saying the two “hit it off and it just happened.” “He manipulated a 13-year-old child to… believe that this was a relationship.”

Nolan also received three years of probation and will remain on the federal sex offender registry for the rest of his life.

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Image via OFFFSTOCK/Shutterstock.

 
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