A former junior hockey player in Canada convicted of a sex crime will not have to serve his sentence until after he finishes school in the spring, outraging the teen victim’s mother.
Connor Neurauter, 21, was sentenced to 90 days for obtaining nude photos from a 13-year-old girl, but won’t be taken into custody until May, according to the Calgary Sun.
“It’s been two years — all of these court dates extended, extended, extended,” the victim’s mother told the newspaper. “Because of . . . why? ‘Sorry, he’s unavailable for court because he has a hockey tournament. He’s unavailable for court because he has exams. He’s unavailable to come do his plea on his own because he’s in the middle of studying.’
“Let’s postpone his jail sentence until May so he can finish his year of university,” she continued. “Nobody has stood up and said no, during the whole thing — there was not one time where the judge or even the Crown said ‘please, this is not right.’ The victims are the ones who have been paying over and over, every time we went to court.”
Neurauter was originally charged in 2016 with having an inappropriate relationship with the 13-year-old girl, who lived in Kamloops in British Columbia, according to the Sun. It was reported by Kamloops This Week in September of 2016 that Neurauter, 19 at the time, was allowed to have his case delayed so he could remain with his hockey team.
He pleaded guilty last week to sexual interference with a person under 16, but remains free to finish the school term at the University of Calgary, according to the Sun.
“This decision serves to give messages to people that sexual violence is not a serious crime within some segments of the justice system — that the perpetrator’s needs come first and that survivors have little voice within a system that generally already feels quite unsafe for people who experience sexual violence,” Danielle Aubry of Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse told the Sun.
“This decision continues to feed into the reason why Canada has a 6% reporting rate of sexual violence crimes.”
Neurauter is on probation and will be on the sex offender registry for 10 years, according to the newspaper.
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