A former St. Michael’s College School student who was sexually assaulted by his schoolmates last fall could not bring himself to write his own victim impact statement because he is unable to relive what happened.

Instead, his parents submitted a statement, read in court by Crown prosecutor Erin McNamara Thursday afternoon on the first day of sentencing for three former St. Michael’s students who pled guilty to sexually assaulting the victim with a weapon.

The parents described feeling “helpless” and fearing their son will be affected by this for the rest of his life. “This was not just some minor hazing incident,” they said.

Their son feels he carries a stigma, and they have to carry this burden alone as they try to move forward, they said.

The other victim chose not to submit a victim impact statement, but McNamara said the psychological effects on him have also been serious.

The Crown is seeking jail time for the three youths who have pled guilty to sexual assault with a weapon and assault with a weapon in connection with two separate incidents involving two different victims. One of the teens also pled guilty to making child pornography for filming the sexual assault on a cellphone.

For two of the teens the Crown asked for a sentence of 12 to 15 months in custody followed by 18 months probation and for one, 10 to 12 months in jail followed by 18 months of probation.

Defence lawyers are seeking a sentence of 24 months of probation for all three teens.

An agreed statement of facts has described two sexual assaults and an assault involving a group of teens using a broomstick in a locker room at the school during the fall of 2018.

The Crown said it could not be proven which teen wielded the broomstick in one of the sexual assaults, which is why the three youths pled guilty to assault with a weapon in connection with that incident.

No pleas were entered in connection with the non-sexual assault.

All three incidents involved members of a football team at the school and all were filmed on a cellphone. Two of the videos were shared widely and one was deleted before it could be shared.

None of the students who were charged or the two victims — all were in their early teens at the time of the offences — can be identified under the provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

There are several aggravating factors for the court to consider, McNamara said, including the fact that the sexual assault with a broomstick was carried out by a group and that the victim was unable to defend himself because he was being held down.

She also stressed the “heinous aspect” of the sexual assault being recorded and shared.

“It’s one thing to be violently assaulted, penetrated and humiliated,” she said. It is another thing to know that that violation is being recorded so that other people will be able to see it, she said.

It means that what happened “is never really over,” she said.

Lawyers for the three teens urged Ontario Court Justice Brian Weagant not to impose a jail sentence and repeatedly cited a systemic culture of bullying at St. Michael’s College School, as described in a lengthy cultural review ordered by the school and filed with the court as an exhibit Thursday. The review does not describe any incidents similar to the ones described in the criminal allegations and found that the bullying was similar to other schools in Canada.

Rocco Loccisano, one of the three defence lawyers, suggested the teens were “taking a bullet” for an environment they did not create but which they were placed in.

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He said that the video of the sexual assault his client took could, in a grimly ironic way, be considered a good thing because it exposed what was happening at the school. He noted that his client has said he was bullied and described seeing students having their buttocks slapped and pants pulled down.

“This behaviour was normalized and it set the stage for this to happen,” said defence lawyer Rachel Lichtman. “This was not an incident that happened in isolation or out of nowhere.”

Lichtman and the other two lawyers emphasized the progress the three teens have made in understanding the harm they caused and said their medical and psychological evaluations show how guilty and remorseful they feel.

They also argued that a custodial sentence would damage their attempts to be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society. Although two of the teens faced threats on social media and difficulty in finding another school that would accept them, they are all now enrolled in high school and one is playing football again, court heard.

Lichtman said a custodial sentence would not undo what was done to the two victims, or benefit society.

“It’s just going to ruin someone else’s life,” she said.

“It wasn’t meant to be damaging,” she said her client told the evaluators of what he did. “It was meant to be hazing …. It turned into something it shouldn’t have. I am really sorry for what I have done and I am willing to face the consequences.”

McNamara said the three incidents described in the agreed statement of facts show a “willing escalation of risk-taking behaviour and violence” that was only stopped when the teens got caught.

The suffering they have endured since “is not a sentence,” she said. “It’s the consequence of the actions they took.”

She also argued that the school environment cannot absolve the teens of their actions, and that while other teens may have also filmed the assaults and been present when they happened, it is these three youths who are before the court to be sentenced.

Of the other four teens criminally charged, two have had their charges withdrawn and one pled guilty and was sentenced to 24 months on probation. It remains unclear what charge or charges he pled guilty to. One case is set to proceed to trial.

A sentencing decision is expected for Dec. 19.