Belgian man and Mtl teen planned life together in Ont. community, court told
MONTREAL - A Belgian man and a smitten 13-year-old girl planned to settle in an Amish community in Ontario where they believed no one would question their 20-year age difference, a courtroom heard Friday.
As Vincent Duval pleaded guilty to six sex-related charges during a scheduled bail hearing, the Crown revealed its wealth of evidence against the native of Liege. Duval, 32, pleaded guilty on Friday to one count each of sexual interference, sexual touching, kidnapping and three counts of luring with a computer. The charges relate to incidents that allegedly happened between October 2007 and last weekend.
Crown prosecutor Nathalie Fafard told the court that the girl's mother called police on June 13 after arriving at her school and hearing that her daughter had left earlier in the day. A crossing guard spotted the girl leaving with Duval after the teen forged a note from her mother saying she had a medical appointment and wouldn't be returning to class.
The online relationship between Duval and the girl began in October 2007 when they met on a web site and
she had passed herself off as being either 25 or 26, Fafard said. The relationship blossomed over e-mail - more than 3,000 missives between the pair through Hotmail accounts - until the girl's mother caught wind of what her daughter was up to in February.
The girl had received a cellular phone at Christmas and managed to rack up a $525 phone bill by calling Belgium. Fafard said the girl's relationship with Duval and her parents' interference caused a fracas within the family.
The Crown said the mother called Duval in Belgium and told him that her daughter was just 13 and that the budding online romance had to end. Fafard said that Duval agreed, but the contact between the two continued by simply changing e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
After the attempt to thwart their growing love affair, the pair began hatching an elaborate plan to be together. Before deciding on Duval's move to Canada, they mulled over where it would be socially acceptable for a man to live with a teenager and discussed Israel as a possibility. However, the girl did not have a passport. They then looked at Amish communities in North America, eventually settling on one in Ontario. They planned to board a bus in Montreal and never return, Fafard said.
Duval purchased a one-way plane ticket and arrived from Belgium on June 12 with his entire savings - C$3,200 - all his clothes, a laptop, webcam, cellular telephone and no credit card. Even though the girl had given him directions from the airport to her school, he failed on his first attempt to find her. They eventually met up the following day before the mother reported the girl missing, prompting a city-wide manhunt until a hotel clerk recognized Duval in the wee hours of June 14.
Montreal police caught Duval in bed with the girl at a St-Hubert Street hotel in a dingy neighbourhood near the Montreal bus station. Among the items seized was a letter addressed to the girl's parents that was never sent. Duval, a computer specialist in Brussels, has no criminal record, Fafard said.
Duval had originally pleaded not guilty during his arraignment, but after realizing the amount of evidence against him, he decided to change his plea, defence lawyer Jeffrey Boro said. "He examined the evidence and he decided that according to our laws, he was guilty of the crimes," Boro said. "He's a 32-year-old man who apparently fell in love with a 13-year-old girl," Boro said.
Sentencing arguments are scheduled for July 3. For a picture of the accused, see below:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2008/06/20/5941131-cp.html
