Warning: This story contains disturbing details and may be distressing to some readers.
A man sentenced to 12 years in prison for sexually abusing a pre-teen girl hundreds of times has filed an appeal of both his conviction and sentence.
A B.C. Court of Appeal judge has acceded to Preston Cory Dickins' appeal of his sentence but not of his conviction.
"I see no reasonable prospect of this court interfering with the guilty verdicts,” Justice Joyce DeWitt-Van Oosten said in her July 4 decision. “This was a judge-alone trial with what appears to have been a thorough and careful review of the evidence and strong credibility and reliability findings.”
Still, DeWitt-Van Oosten said, “I am satisfied it is in the interests of justice to grant an order appointing counsel specific to the appeal from sentence.”
Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Provincial Court Judge Kathryn Denhoff convicted Dickins July 27, 2022 of sexual assault, sexual interference of a person under 16, invitation to sexual touching under 16, making or publishing child pornography and possession of child pornography.
The offences occurred between December 2017 and August 2019, starting when the girl was nine years old.
Dickins told Denhoff he’d never had any sexual interaction with children.
“That is outright vile and disgusting in my opinion,” Dickins told Denhoff in November 2023.
“Mr. Dickins committed hundreds of acts of sexual violence,” Denhoff said as she sentenced Nov. 3, 2023, saying he took away the victim’s innocence, youth, self-confidence and joy.
Some of offences took place in a room Dickins at times shared with his young son.
Denhoff rejected Dickins' testimony in the case, much of it him claiming the child had initiated the sex, images of which police found on his phone.
Dickins also claimed he had taken the images so he could show them to her mother if the child continued to initiate the sex.
“I reject Mr. Dickins’ testimony that (she) initiated the sexual activity,” Denhoff said in her July conviction.
Lawyer appointment
Now, B.C.’s Court of Appeal has agreed Dickins has a ground for appeal on the sentence but dismissed his appeal of the conviction.
“There is no reasonable prospect of success on that appeal and in that context, it is not in the interests of justice to appoint a lawyer,” DeWitt-Van Oosten said.
She noted Dickins is a first-time offender and has arguable issues to raise in mitigation of the sentence that had not been accounted for earlier.
Police also found 3,400 other images on the phone, which Dickins admitted fit the definition of child pornography, the judge said. He claimed he did not know how they had got on the phone.
Crown prosecutor Jenny Dyck said the “horrific” images involved children and babies being sexually abused.
“These images are absolutely at the higher end of the scale of criminality and depravity,” Dyck told Denhoff.
The prosecutor told the judge that a pre-sentencing report indicated Dickins has twice the average risk of re-offending than most sexual abusers.
Dyck said the man was the child’s caregiver, and that the offences constituted a “grievous abuse of trust.”
Lodestar Media has chosen to omit the disturbing details of the case. The child’s name and any identifying information are covered by a publication ban.
Dickins told Lodestar Media that the provincial court did not allow him to provide certain evidence and that made it impossible to defend himself. He said he would appeal the case.
He said his lawyer at the time of trial would not represent him in an appeal.
“I cannot find one to represent me,” he said at the time.
DeWitt-Van Oosten said Legal Aid BC had denied Dickins funding for a lawyer for the appeal.
“He deposes that he is unable to advance the appeal on his own,” she said. “He is not legally trained. He has a high school education and some post-secondary training, but not the type or depth of learning needed to effectively frame and marshal an appeal.”
She said the Crown accepts that Dickins meets the financial criteria for the appointment of a lawyer.
“However, it submits it is not in the interests of justice to grant an appointment for the appeal from conviction because that appeal is without merit,” she said.
