Child sex offender Wade Stene to be sentenced for kidnapping, sexual assault
CBC
WARNING: This article contains details about the sexual abuse of a minor.
A young Edmonton girl stayed away from the courtroom Monday as lawyers suggested how long the man who kidnapped and sexually assaulted her should be behind bars.
The girl was eight years old when she was attacked. Her identity is protected by a publication ban. On March 10, 2020, she was playing with a friend in Edmonton's west central McQueen neighbourhood.
When it was time for dinner, she was making the short trip home across an alley when a white vehicle drove up. Wade Stene was wearing a mask. He got out, grabbed her and put her in the back of the vehicle.
Stene bound her hands, legs and mouth with duct tape and then drove her to a remote location where he sexually assaulted her.
The forty minutes of terror the little girl endured had a devastating impact on her and her family.
"When she came into the house, she held me tight and told me she had been kidnapped," the mother told the court in a victim impact statement.
"We held onto each other and cried together and then more details came out. To hear my daughter tell me she had been raped shattered my heart."
The mother said over the past two years, her daughter had trouble falling asleep, was plagued by nightmares and had a hard time returning to school once in-person classes resumed.
"Some days when we let our daughter go biking with friends, my husband and I have to remind ourselves that if we keep her home and hold her as tightly as we really want to, we will break her spirit," the mom said through tears.
"So we let her go and pray for her healing and wholeness."
The child's father is the one who found her and brought her home that day.
"There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened," he said in his victim impact statement.
"Not a day goes by where I don't feel the pain and horror of that moment. Or anger enough to make my blood boil and thoughts of what I would do with this man if I ever got my hands on him."
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