A 36-year-old man was sentenced Dec. 6 to 30 days in jail and a $100 victim surcharge for sexually assaulting a woman at Algonquin College on Oct.14.
Brandon Radtke, who was in custody for 41 days prior to sentencing, is also subject to two years probation and a 10-year weapon prohibition.
Radtke was also placed under a Sex Offender Information Registration Act order that would have required him to register as a sex offender in a database used by law enforcement.
Radtke was taken into custody on Oct. 26 after Ottawa police appealed to the public for help following the assault on Oct. 14.
He was charged with sexual assault, five counts of failure to comply with a probation order and possession of a scheduled substance.
The greater campus community, however, was not officially notified of the sexual assault until an email was sent out by President Cheryl Jensen on Nov. 12 — 29 days after the attack occurred and 16 days after the arrest of the suspect.
Those gaps in time prompted some in the college and greater community to ask whether that was advisable.
Amina Doreh, public education/media coordinator and support worker at the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Ottawa (SASC), understands the sensitivity of issues surrounding cases of sexual assault.
However, in an interview with the Times in December, she said the college still should have provided some sort of response to the students.
“While the suspect hadn’t been caught yet, students could have been left with a lot of questions,” she said. “It was unclear to the public if this person was a repeat offender and because students need to feel safe at school, the administration should have bridged the gap in information to the best of their ability, under the circumstances.”
This could have included specific messaging to indicate that the investigation process was ongoing and could have also listed the on and off-campus resources available to students.
Ruth Dunley, manager of communications at Algonquin, addressed those concerns at the time in an email to the Times saying, “In some cases, it is possible and appropriate to provide a college alert while in other cases it may not be. We carefully consider the circumstances in each one, weighing the information we receive from our security teams, as well as the police. A decision on such a matter is weighed very carefully.”
(With files from Kate Jenkins)