Crown seeks over 24-year sentence for rapist Raymond Burke in 1980s sex assaults
CBC
The Crown is seeking a 24-and-a-half-year sentence for rapist Raymond Burke, who a judge found guilty last year of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two women in Ontario in the 1980s.
During a sentencing hearing in Superior Court Friday morning, assistant Crown attorney Sandra Duffey said prosecutors are asking for consecutive sentences of 12 years and seven months for the 69-year-old's offences against Angela English, and 12 years for his crimes against Nicole Murdock, with credit for time served.
Burke abducted and brutally attacked both women during separate incidents in southern Ontario in 1986, before fleeing to the United States and assuming a false identity. He was later arrested in Colorado for attacking another woman in 1987 and served decades in prison there, before being paroled and deported back to Canada in 2015.
A judge ordered a stay in his proceedings back in 2017 — allowing Burke to walk free for a time — before the Crown successfully appealed and he was once again committed to trial.
Duffey said Friday that should Burke receive a sentence in line with the Crown's submissions, he would be eligible to apply for parole at the age of 75.
"It is only a lengthy penitentiary sentence that will communicate to others that they will be met with a crippling punishment if they decide to devalue, degrade, endanger and violate women and girls in the community," Duffey said.
Both women previously told CBC News that Burke no longer holds any power over them.
"I'm a survivor. I will never allow you to take any more than you already have taken from me," English said, reading from her victim impact statement.
"I won this battle."
Duffey also said the Crown is taking into account Burke's conduct in court when Justice Sandra Nishikawa handed down her decision last year.
Court previously heard that after the decision was rendered, Burke began to yell racial slurs at his lawyers before turning to the two victims from the witness box and said he hoped they died of COVID, before calling them "whores."
"Mr. Burke's outburst and language that he used compounded the painful impact of his crimes and this trial on the victims in this case," Duffey said.
"The words he used were demeaning and his behaviour was intimidating. It was a continuation of the behaviour they were subjected to in 1986."
WATCH | Murdock and English tell their stories:
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