As her sexual abuser is sentenced, a victim speaks out to spread awareness

It was a moment of poignancy for Kayla Deveau-Adams: a judge’s pointed remarks that she didn’t bear an ounce of blame for the “cruel” and “repulsive” actions of the man who sexually abused her when she was a 14-year-old girl.

On Tuesday, Deveau-Adams listened by phone as Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Denise Boudreau sentenced Bruce Douglas Hatfield, 60, to nine years in prison for two counts of sexual interference for assaults on Deveau-Adams in hotel rooms during a 2010 road trip.

“When she talked about how it wasn’t my fault and stuff, sometimes you need to hear that,” Deveau-Adams said in a phone interview from Yarmouth following sentencing.

“Because for a long time, I think you question, you know, what could I have done different or did I do something?”

Deveau-Adams, who can be identified after a publication ban was lifted, went to police in 2022. She credits the support of her husband and said she also wondered how she could protect her own daughters if she was “leaving a predator on the streets.”

Hatfield pleaded not guilty and went to trial last year. He was convicted in December. His legal aid lawyer, Joshua Nodelman, indicated Tuesday that his client maintains his innocence.

The court heard at trial that Hatfield was a scrap metal dealer in the Yarmouth area who went to Halifax on business. Deveau-Adams was his daughter’s friend. In the fall of 2010, the three travelled to the city and stayed at a hotel on the Bedford Highway.

The judge found that he raped Deveau-Adams after she and her friend drank alcohol and he gave them an unknown pill. The next day Deveau-Adams was frightened and wanted to go home but had no way of doing so.

They returned to Yarmouth but stayed in a hotel. Hatfield sent his daughter to school and then sexually assaulted Deveau-Adams again.

Hatfield has several other convictions for sex-related crimes involving teenage girls, including two around the time he assaulted Deveau-Adams, the court was told.

He is also a registered sex offender. Between 2017 and 2024, when he was arrested, he repeatedly violated the conditions of the sex offender registry by not updating authorities on where he was living or what job he was working.

The nine-year sentence handed down Tuesday was reduced by 423 days for the time Hatfield has already spent in custody.

‘I know it’s scary’

Deveau-Adams said she believes people who sexually abuse children should get far longer in prison, but she said she is satisfied with the sentence handed down. She had feared, she said, that it would be less.

She said she wants to help others who have been sexually assaulted, and as part of that she decided to seek court approval to have the publication ban on her identity lifted. The judge in the case agreed to do so in January. Deveau-Adams hopes that will encourage people to reach out to her.

“I know it’s scary and sometimes you think that it’s so long ago, you won’t be believed or, you know, when there’s no evidence, it’s literally just your word,” she said.

“I know that that’s scary, but I just want to spread awareness that it’s never too late … I just want people to be able to come to me and be a face that they trust.”

She said victim services, the police officer she dealt with and the prosecutors in the case were “amazing.”

The prosecution had sought a sentence of 10 to 12 years. The defence had sought six to seven years.

In her decision, Boudreau noted that adolescent girls are disproportionately victimized by sex offences. She said Hatfield used his victim as an object for his gratification, “without regard for her humanity, without regard for her vulnerability.”

She called Deveau-Adams, who is 30, a “courageous young woman,” and said it is “entirely obvious to me that all moral blameworthiness for what took place lies entirely at the feet of Mr. Hatfield.”

Outside the courtroom, prosecutor Sean McCarroll noted sentences for child sex abuse cases have risen in recent years due to a 2020 Supreme Court of Canada decision in the case of a Manitoba man who sexually assaulted a four-year-old girl.

McCarroll said that decision, in a case called Friesen, changed the focus on the harm done to victims of sexual abuse and the far-reaching effects.

“We are seeing a change in the sentencing regime,” he told reporters. “We are seeing sentences that are markedly higher than they were prior to the Friesen decision coming out, which from our perspective is an appropriate change.”

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