In a historic sentence, Richard Dyke was sentenced to 17 years in prison for multiple sexual offences against children in Moose Jaw Provincial Court on Wednesday.
The sentence handed down by Judge Brian Hendrickson is the longest sentence ever handed out in Saskatchewan for sexual offences against children.
Dyke, 48, was in the court and sat in the inmate’s box looking down for the majority of the proceedings.
On May 12, Crown prosecutor Stephen Yusuff and defence lawyer Estes Fonkalsrud laid out a joint submission in which Dyke pleaded guilty to 10 charges with both lawyers asking for 17 years. The charges include three counts of sexual interference, six counts of making child pornography and one count of voyeurism.
In total, the court heard that there were 33 victims from five different communities in Saskatchewan. The victims were as young as a few months old, and all the victims were minors. There was one outlier between the ages of 17 and 20. Many of the victims were boys under the age of 12, although he did victimize girls as well.
Dyke was arrested in November of 2023 at a home-based daycare in Assiniboia run by this then-wife. The initial investigation identified three victims under the age of 12 from incidents that took place in the mid-2010s.
The RCMP laid 60 additional charges in May of 2024 after further investigation and identified 29 additional victims. The victims’ names are protected under a publication ban.
The case returned to court on Wednesday for Hendrickson’s final decision is which he agreed to follow the joint submission.
Before Hendrickson gave his decision, Yusuff told the court that two of the victims changed their mind and asked Yusuff to read their victim impact statements out loud in court.
In his decision, Hendrickson said the law is laid out that a judge must follow a joint submission unless the joint submission brings the court into disrepute.
Hendrickson outlined that the court received six victim impact statements. He highlighted that the impact statements showed the trauma that the victims incurred and how good parents are now questioning their parenting skills and have lost trust in others.
“Mr Dyke, I think you understand that devastation that your criminal acts have caused. I hope you understand that your heinous actions have caused good parents to question themselves and innocent children feel ashamed, isolated and embarrassed because of your selfish and illegal acts,” Hendrickson said in his sentencing.
Hendrickson said the aggravating factors included:
- It was sexual offences against multiple children
- Many of the victims were quite young, including infants
- The offences happened over a broad period of time, across five different communities.
- In three counts, Dyke’s actions were physically invasive
- In many instances, the child victims were abused on multiple occasions
- Dyke was in a position of trust
- The accused installed hidden cameras in the washroom of his house to videotape and photograph child victims and put on a personal electronic device, showing that the actions took considerable planning and deception
- The harm and pain Dyke caused for the victims and their families.
- Dyke took photos of the victim’s genitalia and stored it on an electronic device.
The mitigating factors Hendrickson took into consideration included:
- Dyke had no criminal record
- The accused entered guilty pleas and took responsibility
- Remand credit
In making his decision, Hendrickson took into consideration R vs. Sproull in which Joseph Sproull was sentenced to 15 years on eight charges of possession and distributing child pornography, making child pornography, sexual assault and sexual interference.
Hendrickson said the differences in the case were that Dyke did not distribute child pornography, Sproull went to trial and it was not a joint submission, and Sproull only had two victims while Dyke had over 30.
The sentencing was broken down to three and a half years for the sexual interference and voyeurism charges, running consecutively. One count of making child pornography was three years consecutive, and four other counts of making child pornography were three years concurrent for a total of 17 years.
Dyke had spent 543 actual days in custody and was given credit for 815 days, meaning Dyke has about 14.7 years later to serve.