Judge Raps Rapist
Long-term offender faces supervision following jail term
By Lisa Lisle
Originally published in The Ottawa Sun, September 5, 2002
A man who repeatedly drugged and raped his wife faces seven years of community supervision once his prison sentence expires after being tagged a long-term offender yesterday.
Robert Dunning, who pleaded guilty last August to two counts of sexual assault and two counts of administering a noxious substance, was also handed 29 more months behind bars.
He's been in custody since his June 2001 arrest and was given the standard two-for-one credit for time spent in jail awaiting sentence.
"There is a substantial risk that Mr. Dunning will reoffend,"Justice Hugh Fraser said in his decision.
Dunning was charged after Virna Dunning—his wife and mother of his two children—went to the police with shocking videotapes she found of him performing deviant sex acts on her almost-lifeless body. It's believed she had been attacked at least 10 times after he laced her milk with some kind of drug.
DEVIANT BEHAVIOUR
During the time this was going on—between August 2000 and April 2001—Dunning let her believe her blackouts were caused by a tumour rather than the drug he was using to knock her out.
In an effort to cover up his own deviant behaviour, he even suggested to his wife that she had been drugged and raped by a man she picked up at a bar.
Virna Dunning didn't immediately go to the police but confronted her husband with what she had found. His explanation to her was that "he liked a chilled body."
Despite his pleas to keep the matter between them and the doctor he had been seeing about the issue, Virna Dunning went to the police. After a two-month investigation, Dunning was slapped with 22 sex-related offences.
Two of the charges—one count of sexual assault and one count of administering a noxious substance—were in relation to a 40-year-old co-worker.
While undergoing counselling, Dunning laced Roxanne Clarmo's sandwich with the same drug he used on his wife and sexually assaulted her. The woman was still semi-conscious when the attack began and pleaded with Dunning to stop.
Dunning told doctors who completed his court-ordered psychiatric assessment that his failing marriage was to blame for his behaviour.
The same team of doctors reported that the man was a sexual deviant and a "moderately high risk."
According to a victim impact statement filed with the court, Clarmo still has flashbacks and has not returned to work where the assault occurred.
Virna Dunning is still in the process of finalizing her divorce.
"The fact that this happened to us will haunt us forever," she wrote in her victim impact statement.
"Never will the feeling of shame be gone. I feel ashamed for my children. They will have to deal with having a criminal for a father for all their lives."
