A BC Court of Appeal tribunal ruled Oct. 14 that a Provincial Court judge’s sentence was too light for a Fort St. John veterinarian who admitted he drugged and raped his sister-in-law and took photos of her nude body.
Justin Donald Sewell was sentenced last April to two years less a day of house arrest for sexual assault. Judge David Simpkin also sentenced Sewell to concurrent terms of six months on one count of voyeurism and three months on another.
The appeal court decision, written by Justice Lisa Warren, upheld the Crown’s appeal and substituted a new sentence of 33 months, less a day, in jail.
In 2007, while his wife and children were away, Sewell spiked the woman’s drink with ketamine or Valium, sexually assaulted her and took photos of her naked body. He told the court that he had an addiction to pornography.
The woman reported the incident to police in 2019. In 2021, with assistance of detectives, she recorded a meeting with Sewell at a restaurant in Vancouver International Airport where he confessed.
“This court imposes consecutive custodial sentences of two years less a day on the sexual assault count, six months on one of the voyeurism counts, and three months on the other,” Warren wrote in the decision. Justices Joyce DeWitt-Van Oosten and Christopher Grauer agreed.
At the time of sentencing, Sewell had no criminal record, but had a thriving clinic that employed 15 people. He told the sentencing judge that the clinic would likely close if he were to be incarcerated.
Warren decided Simpkin erred in imposing concurrent sentences on the voyeurism counts and the fact that one arose from a different incident.
“He also erred in failing to consider whether, in light of those factors, a penitentiary term was excluded as a cumulative sentence before determining the appropriateness of a conditional sentence order,” Warren wrote.
Warren said Sewell’s new sentence is retroactive to April 4, but left it to correctional authorities to calculate the amount of credit for time already served on the conditional sentence order.
“The intention is that for the purposes of statutory release, the respondent be treated as an offender who received a cumulative sentence of 33 months (less one day) when the sentences were imposed on April 4,” said the decision.
