The man who was the subject of a Prince Albert Amber Alert last summer after he kidnapped and sexually assaulted an eight-year-old girl has been sentenced to eight years in a federal prison.
Twenty-year-old Jared John Charles was sentenced at Prince Albert Provincial Court this afternoon.
Charles has also been classified as a dangerous sex offender.
In making his decision, Justice Hugh Harradence said the sentence “balances severity of act — high — with moral blameworthiness — low.”
The Crown had been seeking nine years in prison while defence had argued for a lesser sentence of five years.
Charles previously pleaded guilty to the charges.
He will be credited for the 1.5 years for time already served in custody.
Charles suffers from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and has the impulse control and emotional maturity of a child.
Court also heard he had been in and out of foster care since the age of two, his mother was killed in an alcohol-related motor vehicle accident when he was five and one of his sisters committed suicide.
On the afternoon of July 4, 2017, Charles abducted the girl from a local playground and took her to an abandoned house where he sexually assaulted her for three hours.
He later abandoned her in a remote wooded area where she had to walk more than seven kilometres to the nearest farmhouse to get help.
(PHOTO: Jared Charles. Photo courtesy Prince Albert Police)