The mother of a sexual abuse victim believes the justice system in Nova Scotia has failed her Indigenous daughter.

On Friday, Justice James Chipman agreed to a joint sentencing recommendation from the Crown and defence, imposing a five-year prison sentence on John Alexander Cripps.

“The judge could have given him a harsher sentence instead of precedent,” said the mother, whose identity is being protected by Global News so as not to identify the victim.

“If you look at the file, there’s been several charges that were dismissed. As the victim’s mother and as an advocate for my daughter in this moment, I feel that her voice has not been fully heard. That some of her trauma has been dismissed.”

In 2021, an agreed statement of facts says Cripps and his former partner hired a 13-year-old girl to babysit for the summer.

While living in the home, Cripps admits to sexually assaulting the girl six different times.

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After the summer, Cripps continued to communicate with her in a sexual manner until his arrest in June of 2022.

In December of last year, the former Canadian Armed Forces member pleaded guilty to two of the 10 charges he faced — sexual interference and using telecommunications to lure a child under the age of 16 to facilitate a sexual offence.

The other eight counts Cripps was facing, including sexual assault, were dismissed in court on Friday.

The victim, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, is now 18 and had her victim impact statement read in court during Cripps’ sentencing.

The statement read by the Crown talks about how the abuse deeply affected her life and led her to attempt suicide multiple times.

“For the entire first year after he assaulted me, I was barely surviving,” the impact statement reads. “Life stopped feeling like life. My family watched me disappear. They lost their daughter in all the ways that mattered.”

The girl’s mother and grandmother also gave victim impact statements in court.

“I was holding my eagle feather, that it gave me strength and courage to speak the truth,” the mother said outside of court. “Our Aboriginal children, our children in general, deserve to have more justice in the system. They deserve to be heard.”

The justice gave Cripps five years in prison for each charge, and they are to be served concurrently.

Cripps will be back before a judge on March 20 on allegations of failing to comply with a court order and for being at large of an undertaking.

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