It wasn’t how Matthew Albert Percy planned on spending his 36th birthday.
Instead of celebrating with his family and friends, Percy was in Halifax provincial court Thursday for sentencing on charges of sexual assault and voyeurism from an encounter with a Saint Mary’s University student in her dorm room in September 2017.
Percy, who was a groundskeeper at SMU at the time of the incident, was found guilty last December of having intercourse with the young woman while she was unconscious and recording parts of the encounter on his cellphone without her consent.
Judge Elizabeth Buckle handed the Halifax man a 30-month sentence but deducted 768 days as credit for his time on remand, leaving him with 144 days to serve.
She also gave him three years’ probation, with a requirement that he take part in sexual offender programming and any other counselling deemed necessary by his probation officer.
“Mr. Percy’s conduct in having intercourse with a woman when she was unconscious must be strongly denounced,” Buckle said.
“The sentence must reflect society’s intolerance for this kind of behaviour.”
The Crown had recommended a four-year prison sentence, and the defence 12 to 18 months in custody.
The incident happened Sept. 15, 2017, after Percy walked the complainant home from downtown Halifax.
Percy used his iPhone to record two videos of sexual activity with the woman, who was heavily intoxicated after a night out with friends and does not recall consenting to sex.
The second video shows Percy having intercourse with the woman while she is unresponsive. Her eyes are closed and her head is turned to the side, her arms hanging motionless.
The woman is silent for more than two minutes. After Percy sets the phone down on the bed, she can be heard moaning. He asks her several times if she’s OK or if she wants him to stop, and she gives an inaudible, one-word reply.
“For approximately 90 seconds to two minutes, (the woman) was unconscious while Mr. Percy had intercourse with her,” the judge said in her Dec. 14 decision.
“The law is absolutely clear that an unconscious person cannot consent to sexual activity.”
Buckle said Percy took no steps to ensure the woman was consenting to intercourse and recorded the videos without her knowledge.
In a victim impact statement, the woman said she stayed in her room for two weeks after the incident. “The curtains remained closed so I wouldn’t have to see that stupid little (groundskeeper) tractor. To say I was tired and depressed wouldn’t describe it correctly. I was in shock, anxious to the point of getting sick.
“I eventually crawled out of my seclusion, only to replace the safety blanket of my locked room with that of drinking.”
She said she tried to keep up with her studies but missed classes because of bouts of depression and anxiety.
“I’m ashamed to say it now, but I almost didn’t follow through with the charges,” the victim said. “I was so exhausted. I was tired of the phone calls and the voice mails and the meetings and the expectations on how I should feel and how I should be reacting. I wanted it to stop. At that time, being so desperate, I told them I did not want to go forward with the charges.
“A week or so later, I was called into a meeting with the detective and learned of the videos. Never had I been so blindsided. Imagine learning the person who assaulted you had filmed it for God knows what. Imagine learning that with your father sitting beside you.”
On Thursday, the judge said Percy’s actions demonstrated a sense of entitlement over the complainant’s body and a disregard for her right to make choices.
“The circumstances of these offences … are disturbing and give rise to a concern that Mr. Percy may have inappropriate attitudes or beliefs about women and/or sexual conduct,” Buckle said.
“That needs to be assessed by a professional and, if necessary, treated through specific sexual offender programming.”
She ordered Percy to have no contact with the victim while in custody or on probation, provide a DNA sample for a national databank and register as a sex offender for 20 years. She also prohibited him from having firearms for 10 years.
Crown attorney Rick Woodburn said the sentence was just and struck a balance between the sentencing principles of denunciation, deterrence and rehabilitation.
“This sexual assault was a gross, indecent act against the victim,” Woodburn said.
“She was strong woman for coming forward. … This process was hard on her but she’s going to come out on top. I know her to be a strong person.”
Percy is accused of raping three other women in Halifax between November 2013 and September 2017.
He was found not guilty in provincial court last August on charges of sexual assault, choking and voyeurism, from an incident with a different SMU student at his apartment Sept. 3, 2017.
The Crown appealed the acquittal, claiming the trial judge erred in finding the prosecution failed to prove the woman had not consented to sex. The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal will hear the case in October.
Percy has two trials scheduled next year in Nova Scotia Supreme Court. Those are from an incident at a Dalhousie University student residence in December 2014 and another at a woman’s apartment in November 2013.
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