Warning: The following contains details of sexual assault and may not be suitable for all readers.

A man has been sentenced to prison by a B.C. Supreme Court judge in Nanaimo after rough sex and "rape fantasies" with a woman were determined to have been sexual assault.

Justice Robin Baird sentenced Elijah Gregory Grier-Gaiga, 29, on March 4 to four years in jail for sexual assault against a woman with a physical disability whose identity is protected under a publication ban. He had previously been found guilty by a jury.

According to court documents, the two met online in October 2019, at which time the woman let it be known she was partial to sadomasochistic and rough sex and fantasized about sexual assault. The two met later that day and in the victim's residence, he approached her while she was washing her face and "had a knife which he grazed up her back." Despite the woman's feelings of confusion and intimidation, the two had consensual sex.

They would meet two to three times a week until January 2020, engaging in consensual sex in a purely sexual relationship, the judge's ruling stated.

However, the victim testified that in six instances, she was forced to engage in non-consensual sex acts. In one incident, Grier-Gaiga stated he wanted to have sex in the back of the van. The woman's condition limited her mobility and led to pain and because of that, she told him she would not be comfortable. Despite her concerns, he still ordered her to the back of the van, tore her clothes off and forced himself on her.

"She explained that when she gets scared her muscles tighten up due to her [condition]," the ruling read. "Grier-Gaiga laughed at her, she said, and commented that this was 'a riot.' She said that his sexual arousal increased with her distress."

In another incident, he bit her neck and spat in her face before engaging in sex; again she stated she didn't want to and started crying and he laughed at her.

While the two had a "safe word," the woman never used it, stated the ruling and a pre-sentence report. Grier-Gaiga stated "throughout, he was only trying to play the part of the person the complainant wanted him to be, and it was all an act. He believed the victim was madly in love with him, and that if she did not like what he was doing, she would not have kept coming back for more."

Grier-Gaiga was diagnosed with alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder, which may have inhibited his ability to pick up on signs from the victim. In the judge's opinion, his girlfriend's "expression of interest in rough sex, domination, submission, and rape fantasy scenarios constituted, in [his] mind, a form of unrestricted licence given in advance to use the complainant however he liked regardless of any protestations on her part that she did not wish to proceed, or that she was in pain, or that she wanted him to stop."

The judge said the guilty man's treatment of the woman was "abominable" and "cruel and inexcusable" and demanded a strong penalty.