Ex-Quebec firefighter Kenneth Marlin sentenced to 14 years for molesting kids on farm

On Thursday, Quebec Court Justice Joey Dubois sentenced Kenneth Marlin to 14 years in prison for abusing five children over the span of a decade on his parents' farm in Hemmingford, Que., a small rural town about 65 kilometres south of Montreal.

Warning: This story contains details of sexual assault and suicidal ideation.

For several years, children would come to the Marlin family farm in southern Quebec to live there in foster care or to do chores like feeding the cows and loading bales of hay.

But some of those kids, some as young as seven years old, were also repeatedly sexually assaulted on the farm by the man they looked up to the most — Kenneth Marlin.

On Thursday, Quebec Court Justice Joey Dubois sentenced Marlin to 14 years in prison for abusing five children over the span of a decade on his parents' farm in Hemmingford, Que., a small rural town about 65 kilometres south of Montreal by the U.S. border.

Some of the abuse happened year-round, whereas for other children it was during the summer months when they spent time on the farm. But in each case, "He abused these children for his own sexual pleasure," the judge wrote in his judgment on Thursday. 

"The accused would abuse each victim whenever and wherever he could."

Marlin was a volunteer firefighter in Hemmingford from 1987 to 2020. He denied the accusations, but after hearing evidence from the five complainants, the judge found him guilty earlier this year on all 20 charges, including sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, and sexual assault.