38 Years After, Man, 62, Jailed For Sexual Assault

An Ontario Supreme Court of Justice has sentenced Bradley Britton, aged 62, to eight years imprisonment for sexually assaulting two women in 1987 and 1993 in Toronto and Oakville, Ontario, respectively. The court described these as serious historical offences that warranted punishment despite the long passage of time.

Britton, who was 24 at the time of the first assault, broke into the Toronto home of 28-year-old N.G. in the early morning hours of May 23, 1987. He threatened her with a knife and sexually assaulted her while her husband and children slept nearby. Six years later, in 1993, Britton ambushed 20-year-old A.N. in Oakville after hiding behind a gravestone, attacked her, and threatened her silence. The investigations that identified him only concluded in 2023, aided by forensic advances and genealogy lab work in Texas.

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Justice Conlan, delivering the judgment, emphasized the severity and responsibility of the offender despite mitigating factors like Britton’s history of drug and alcohol abuse and the time elapsed without further crime. He sentenced Britton to five years for the 1987 offence and three years for the 1993 attack, making a consecutive “global sentence” of eight years in prison.

Justice Conlan stated, “The gravity of these two offences is very significant… a significant penitentiary sentence is the only reasonable disposition” while tempering the sentence to reflect the totality principle. The sentence aims to deliver justice for the victims and uphold the seriousness of sexual offences regardless of how long ago they occurred