A man convicted of sexually assaulting a woman while she was clearly too intoxicated to consent failed to show up to his sentencing hearing Thursday and may have fled the province.

Moazzam Tariq, 29, was on $10,000 bail pending sentencing and had surrendered his passport. He was required to live with his father, his surety, and had to be home between the hours of 10 p.m and 6 a.m.

Tariq’s father last spoke to Tariq on Nov. 24, Crown prosecutor Jill Witkin told the court.

Tariq said he was in Vancouver on business, but would return for his Dec. 1 court date. Tariq stopped returning his father’s calls and his father came to court on Nov. 24 to remove himself as a surety. A warrant for Tariq’s arrest was issued.

His lawyer Danielle Robitaille told the court it had been days since she last spoke to Tariq and that she did not expect him to appear in court.

Ontario Court Justice Mara Greene found that Tariq has absconded to avoid being sentenced and ordered that the sentencing hearing proceed without him.

The Crown is seeking a sentence of three years in prison.

The victim, whose identity is subject to a publication ban, and Tariq first met at a downtown Toronto club, and he immediately and repeatedly encouraged her to drink vodka.

When they left the club together 13 minutes later, she could barely walk, surveillance video shows. The last surveillance video from that night shows them in an elevator going up to a room at the Thompson Hotel.

Tariq was alert and upbeat, the victim appeared to be “very intoxicated, lethargic, and, at times, dazed,” Greene found.

“I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that (the victim) did not appreciate where she was or what she was doing,” Greene wrote in her decision. “(She) did not realize she could refuse to go with Mr. Tariq and say no to sexual intercourse.”

Prosecutor Nathan Kruger argued Tariq showed a callous disregard for the victim’s will, autonomy and dignity prior to the rape.

Surveillance video from the club clearly shows Tariq ignoring the victim’s signs of impairment and her intentions by touching her, grinding against her and encouraging her to drink after she refused, he said.

“(The sexual assault) was planned, deliberate and demonstrative of a significant amount of power and control over (the complainant),” he said, adding that Tariq isolated the victim and assaulted her at a time of complete vulnerability.

Kruger argued the sentence imposed should deter this type of behaviour that is “normalized or even encouraged” in bars and clubs.

Robtaille, Tariq’s lawyer, was removed as his counsel at her request and did not make submissions.

Victim Impact Statement View document on Scribd

In a three-and-a-half page impact statement submitted to the court, the victim, now 26, described the horror of waking in a hotel room with no memory of how she got there, but knowing something was terribly wrong.

“My friends came to get me and I collapsed into their arms, I couldn’t stop crying and I could barely breathe,” she said.

She questioned how Tariq’s behaviour could go unchecked in public — especially when she could barely walk or stand unsupported in the hotel lobby and when she did not sign her own name on the check-in form.

“If even one person stopped to ask if I was okay, this might not have happened. I will never know,” she said. “But, now, when I see someone who is so intoxicated they can barely walk being carried away, I always ask if they are okay. You never know if the person with them is a predator.”

Farrah Khan, the coordinator for sexual violence education and support at Ryerson University, has begun using the shocking surveillance videos from this case in training workshops for servers and bartenders, so they can discuss how to intervene in similar circumstances. Sometimes it’s distracting the person with the woman so someone can speak to her and find out if there is someone she needs to call or if she’s okay — or getting her away by asking to come to the bathroom or share a cab. It could even be ensuring that people who are not behaving appropriately know they are being watched.

“Sometimes people who are commit acts or are planning to commit acts, when they know someone is watching them, they are less likely to keep going,” she says.

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People often talk about their fear of being wrong, feeling awkward or that it’s none of their business, she says.

“Check in a way that feels safe for you,” she says. “This is your community. These are people are in your community.”

The Crown had not been informed of the warrant issued last week, prompting Greene to ask about a better process to keep the victim and the court informed should Tariq be apprehended.

A date for a sentencing hearing is tentatively set for Dec. 19.