Warning: This story contains disturbing details Within a few hours of meeting his 17-year-old co-worker in July 2021, Bryan John Miles was sexually assaulting her in the backseat of a car. Late last month, roughly five years after the crime, the 47-year-old was sentenced to prison by a B.C. Supreme Court judge. Justice Briana Hardwick convicted Miles of sexual assault in January. On July 21, she imposed a five-year sentence, less 320 days’ credit for time spent in pre-trial custody. Her reasons for sentencing were published online Thursday. According to the decision, which Hardwick first delivered orally, the victim and accused in the case were initially anonymized due to a publication ban. The Crown later applied, at the request of the victim, to lift the publication ban. A new co-worker The written version of the decision refers to Miles by his full name and refers to the victim as “Ms. Venables.” Her first name is not mentioned. According to the document, Venables was living at the Holiday Inn & Suites in Osoyoos and working as a cook in the kitchen of the hotel’s restaurant at the time of the assault. On the morning of the incident, she was not feeling well and went back to sleep when her alarm went off. When she woke again, it was after 7 a.m. and she was late for her shift, according to the decision. “The restaurant at the Holiday Inn had already opened and there was an unknown adult male cooking in the kitchen,” the decision reads. “Ms. Venables was told that this male individual, now known to her as Mr. Miles, was a friend of (her co-worker) that had been called in to assist. Ms. Venables had never met this person and was not even aware of his name.” Miles and Venables “worked co-operatively” during their time together in the kitchen. The decision indicates that around 10:15 a.m., roughly two hours after Venables started her shift, Miles asked if she wanted to take a smoke break, “as there was a lull in orders.” Venables said she had left her cigarettes in her room, and Miles offered to let her “bum” one of his, which were in his car in the parking lot, according to the decision. “Ms. Venables testified that she did not think it was unusual to take a smoke break with a co-worker, even with a very new co-worker, as her personal observations to that point in her life was that it was common practice in the restaurant industry,” the decision reads. The assault Miles unlocked the vehicle remotely using a fob and Venables got inside. “As Ms. Venables was close to finishing her cigarette, Mr. Miles entered the vehicle,” the decision reads. “Mr. Miles retrieved a ‘mickey’ of vodka from within the vehicle and proceeded to take a drink from it. Mr. Miles offered Ms. Venables a drink from the vodka bottle, but she declined. Mr. Miles then locked the doors of the vehicle, started the vehicle, and drove away from the Holiday Inn.” The decision notes there were still customers in the restaurant at the time, and the breakfast shift did not end until 11 a.m. Shortly after leaving the hotel parking lot, Miles began touching Venables’ leg “in a sexual manner,” according to the decision. He parked outside “a quite busy local coffee shop” a short distance away from the hotel, then got out of the vehicle and joined Venables in the back seat. “I accepted the evidence of Ms. Venables that there was, without the consent of Ms. Venables, repeated digital penetration by Mr. Miles of Ms. Venables’s vagina,” the decision reads. “There were also multiple attempts at penile-vaginal penetration and some more limited attempt at penile-anal penetration with the success of penetration (except digital penetration) being constrained due to the intermittently flaccid or semi-flaccid state of Mr. Miles’s penis during portions of the encounter.” Eventually, Miles lost consciousness and Venables was able to leave the vehicle. She walked to a nearby park, where she encountered a City of Osoyoos employee, who called 911. Police later found Miles unconscious in the vehicle with his pants around his ankles. The sentence According to Hardwick’s decision, Miles has a history of “substance misuse”—primarily of alcohol, though he has also used hard drugs—that has had a significant impact on “virtually every aspect of his life.” “A stark example of this is Mr. Miles’s reluctance, until incarcerated, to take medication prescribed to him because of concerns about its interactions with the consumption of alcohol, despite his being hospitalized for very serious medical reasons during the course of this litigation which are directly connected to his struggles with substance misuse,” the decision reads. Miles’ criminal record includes 17 prior convictions, though none of them were for sexual assault, according to the decision. He had previously been found guilty of three non-sexual assaults, two impaired driving offences, six counts of theft, one count of mischief and six breaches of release or probation conditions. The decision notes there was “a notable break in offending behaviour” between 2002 and 2016, when Miles was gainfully employed and “generally living a prosocial lifestyle.” Hardwick considered this background—as well as a psychological assessment opining that Miles presents “a low-moderate to moderate risk” of reoffending and noting his “lack of insight” into his offence and “victim-blaming mentality”—when considering an appropriate sentence. The judge sentenced him to five years of incarceration, equivalent to 1,825 days. With enhanced credit of 320 days for the time he has already spent in custody, the remaining sentence is 1,505 days. Hardwick also ordered Miles to submit DNA samples, comply with the Sex Offender Information Registration Act for 20 years, and have no contact with Venables while incarcerated. He is also banned from possessing prohibited and restricted firearms for life, and from possessing other firearms for a 10-year period.
