A former Buddhist monk who subjected two young girls to years of sexual abuse at a Winnipeg temple has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Southone Silaphet, 74, was convicted after trial last year of two counts of sexual interference.
Silaphet abused the two victims between 2016 and 2019, during visits to the Wat Lao Xayaram temple on Sinclair Street where he had been head monk for more than 12 years.
Silaphet abused the two victims between 2016 and 2019 during visits to the Wat Lao Xayaram temple on Sinclair Street where he had been head monk for more than 12 years. (Jesse Boily / Winnipeg Free Press files)
Silaphet’s actions represented a severe betrayal of trust and caused the victims to question their culture and faith, provincial court Judge Stacy Cawley said in a 24-page decision released earlier this month.
“He was trusted because he was head monk — a position that would garner respect and imply morality,” Cawley said. “His actions were opposite to what would be expected of a dedicated religious leader. His conduct was exacerbated by the fact he sexually abused the victims in the temple, a sacred place, where the children should have felt safe.”
Silaphet employed “a high degree of manipulation” in abusing his victims, telling one girl his acts of molestation would keep the spirit of her dead grandmother alive, Cawley said.
“He told her it would be disrespectful to her grandmother to not let him do what he wanted,” Cawley said. “Silaphet’s exploitation of (her) love of her grandmother and her faith was insidious.”
Silaphet was arrested in 2019 after the girl told her school guidance counsellor she had been sexually abused. The abuse, which included kissing, fondling underneath her clothes and biting, had happened “for as long as I really remember,” the girl told an investigator in a police video statement provided to court at trial.
Silaphet, who lived at the temple, a converted fire hall, abused the girl in an upstairs office equipped with security cameras that allowed him to see people coming up the stairs, the girl said.
On one occasion, the girl said, Silaphet saw a man walking up the stairs and made the girl hide in a closet until he had left.
“It was confusing. That’s when I kind of realized that this was wrong, that it wasn’t supposed to be happening,” she said.
A second pre-teen victim said Silaphet repeatedly touched her under her clothing “in wrong places” while the two were alone in his upstairs office.
“He would tell my mom that he just wanted us to pray, even though it wouldn’t be praying,” the girl said in a separate police video interview.
Silaphet testified at trial with the help of a Laotian interpreter and flatly denied abusing the girls, saying he was never alone with them for more than a few minutes.
Cawley, in convicting Silaphet in December, rejected his testimony as self-serving, saying it “appeared tailored to minimize the contact he had with the complainants and the degree of his favouritism.”
Defence lawyer Kathy Bueti had urged Cawley to consider a sentence of no more than 30 months, arguing, in part, Silaphet has already lost his job and home as a result of his crimes and has suffered the stigma of being a convicted sex offender.
Such impacts are the natural consequences of his actions, Cawley said.
“It should come as no surprise to Mr. Silaphet that he would lose the position of head monk and all the privileges that he enjoyed because he abused that position when he sexually violated children in the temple.”
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Someone once said a journalist is just a reporter in a good suit. Dean Pritchard doesn’t own a good suit. But he knows a good lawsuit.
