KENTVILLE, N.S. - Darrin Phillip Rouse “fits the common dictionary definition of a sexual predator,” a Kentville Supreme Court judge said while sentencing the Kings County man to 22 more months in prison Thursday.
It was the third separate sentence hearing in two weeks for Rouse. Justice Gregory Warner was sentencing the 52-year-old for drug trafficking and trading drugs for sex. He now has a total prison term of seven years.
Rouse’s sentencing came a year to the day after Warner convicted him of the crimes. Warner noted the long delay, most of which came because of defence requests. The sentencing had originally been scheduled for Dec. 4 of last year.
The victim testified at trial that she met Rouse two years ago through a mutual friend as a drug dealer who could provide her with Dilaudid to feed her addiction.
She testified that on the first day she went to Rouse’s home she had lost her wallet, and he proposed trading sex for the drugs.
“We had sex and he gave me drugs, and it went from there,” she said.
Evidence in the trial included a video recording from a bedroom camera connected to Rouse’s own surveillance system. It showed Rouse providing the woman with a pill, which she prepared and injected, and a short clip of the two having sex in the room.
Crown attorney Michael MacKenzie had asked for a sentence of four years, while defence lawyer Jonathan Hughes suggested 18 months reduced to 12 because of the other sentences Rouse is already serving.
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In his decision, Warner said the victim was “a desperate drug addict. Mr. Rouse preyed on her. She was a vulnerable person.”
He said Rouse has been in rehabilitative programs because of two sexual assault convictions in the 1990s and 2000s. “He is in denial with respect to his actions, and considers himself a victim.”
Rouse has been assessed on two scales as being at an above-average risk of being charged or convicted of another sexual offence.
“One of the most troublesome aspects of this case is that the motive for trafficking to a young, desperate drug addict was to take advantage of a particular vulnerability to get sexual satisfaction without committing a sexual assault,” Warner said.
Rouse received a five-year sentence Sept. 12 for sexual interference against a 13-year-old in the early 2000s, and was sentenced Tuesday to two months on top of that for another conviction for trading drugs for sex. That involved a different woman in 2015.
Rouse was also sentenced to 15 months in jail in 1999 for sexual assault three years earlier, and sentenced to three years in 2004 for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in 2002.
He was on parole for that crime when he committed the sexual interference against the 13-year-old.
In October, Rouse will be back in court for trial on charges of sexual touching of a person under the age of 16, invitation to sexual touching, sexual assault and drug trafficking. The charges all involve the same complainant.
MacKenzie said after court that if Rouse is convicted, he will be asking for more federal jail time on top of the current sentence.
