Should a father in his 40s receive a harsher adult sentence for committing a knifepoint rape in downtown Toronto in 1990, or should he be sentenced as the “gangly,” troubled 17-year-old he was at the time of the vicious crime?

The man, known as R.D.M., was convicted last year under the Youth Criminal Justice Act of charges he raped, threatened and robbed a young woman, known as S.W., based largely on a DNA match made in 2016.

Crown attorney Cara Sweeny is asking the trial judge to sentence him as an adult to 10 years in prison. (A second man who participated in the attack has never been found.)

Under the YCJA, R.D.M.’s identity is covered under a publication ban that could lift if Sweeny is successful.

On Thursday, Sweeny told Superior Court Justice Brian O’Marra that the maximum 16-month sentence under the YCJA “would not be sufficient to hold him accountable.”

“Obviously, that sentence is far too low,” she argued, given the “prolonged and horrific” nature of the crime.

Sweeny recounted that S.W. was a sex worker in August 1990 when two men grabbed her off the street, told her to close her eyes, and held her down while they took turns raping her, before stealing her money and leaving her naked “and terrified” near Church St. and Carlton Ave.

Her whole life was “turned upside down” and she left Toronto not long after it happened, Sweeny said.

At the time, R.D.M. was six months shy of the 18th birthday that would have made him an adult under the law, she noted. Nor has he lived an “unblemished life” since — he has committed numerous offences, including robbery, aggravated assault, criminal harassment and two assaults with a weapon, in addition to several breaches of court orders.

Except for a 2014 drug charge that led to his DNA being taken, he has had no convictions since 2005.

Defence lawyer Lisa Jorgensen asked O’Marra not to use R.D.M.’s later “bad decisions” to give him a harsher sentence. She urged the judge to sentence him as he was in 1990, a young kid “gangly, (with) no record” who had a “textbook, difficult, horrible childhood” and was living on the streets at the time.

“That’s the child you need to sentence today,” Jorgensen said

The YCJA, she added, recognizes that young people are vulnerable and has sentencing tailored to give them a chance to live healthy and productive lives.

Jorgensen argued 16 months under the YCJA is a fit sentence, though if O’Marra sides with the prosecution and sentences R.D.M. as an adult, a three-year term would be appropriate. She said her client has taken significant steps to get his life on track, eschewing alcohol and working full time.

“I think the man before you now is, after a long struggle, rehabilitated and the court should have confidence there is a very low likelihood of these offences, or any offence, ever being committed again.”

The case is unusual but not unprecedented.

In 1983, a 70-year-old woman in southwestern Ontario was raped and murdered. The crime went unsolved until a thumbprint left at the scene was linked to Christopher Ellacott. He was 15 at the time.

He was convicted of first-degree murder in 2012 as a middle-aged man with a job, two children and no other criminal convictions.

The judge agreed with the Crown that he should be sentenced as an adult not a youthful offender. He received a life sentence with a seven-year parole ineligibility period and lifetime supervision.

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In 2017, Ontario’s highest court upheld the judge’s decision, saying the adult sentence was not “demonstrably unfit.”

“The appellant committed a gruesome crime at the age of 15. He sexually assaulted and murdered his elderly, vulnerable neighbour. He went on as though nothing had happened, avoiding justice for nearly 30 years. There is no explanation for his crime; no sense of what motivated him to have committed so heinous an act,” the Court of Appeal judges wrote.

O’Marra will hear further arguments in the 1990 Toronto rape case in May.