Warning: This story contains extremely disturbing details involving child abuse.A RCMP officer will serve 15 years in prison after being found guilty for chaining up and torturing his young son in the basement of their Kanata, Ontario home.During the trial, 45 minutes of video recorded by the boy's father—who cannot be named due to a publication ban—showed what some police officers stated was the worst case of child abuse they've ever seen.
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In the videos, the former Mountie's 11-year-old old son was naked and shackled to a post. Next to him was a bucket for the boy to use as his washroom. During the trial, the court heard how the boy was kept in the basement for six months. At the end of the captivity he was only being fed two peanut butter pitas a day.Upstairs his father and stepmother went on with their business as if nothing was wrong.As reported by the National Post, the father would interrogate the sobbing and chained boy. The interrogations all had a religious leaning and the father would demand that his son repent for his sins. During the trial, the father stated that he believed his son was possessed—the boy said his father was punishing him for "lust.""You haven't repented yet! You will weep blood for what you have done. I don't see you on your knees yet," the man yelled at his shackled and naked son in one of the videos.The court also heard that the father hit his son so hard with the back of his hand he broke one of his son's teeth, burned his genitals with a barbecue lighter, and once pointed his gun at the boy's head.The boy told the court that he tried to escape for the duration of the last month his father held him captive. Finally, in mid-February of 2013, he was able to loosen the chains and escape the basement. When the boy was found, he weighed 50 pounds.During the trial the boy, now 15-years-old, expressed a want for his father not to do time, and for his family to be put back together. The defence argued that the father was mentally incompetent at the time of the crimes.According to the National Post , the father presented himself as the victim and spoke of a nightmare childhood where he was sexually assaulted in a war-torn country, that his career with the RCMP going downhill, and that his son was a "problem child." A psychiatrist who was a witness for the defence testified that the father suffered from extreme PTSD and narcissism.The Mountie was fired from the force when he was convicted in November of assault, sexual assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessities of life. The boy's stepmother, who was at home on maternity leave during the torture, was found guilty as well—she was sentenced to three years.After spending two years behind bars during the trial, the father will serve a further 13 years and two months.Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.