FORT QU’APPELLE, Saskatchewan — A former professional chef who learned how to castrate farm animals as a boy was given a suspended sentence Thursday for removing the testicles of a man who wanted a sex change.
Gary Gillingwater, 57, apologized for his actions in provincial court after he pleaded guilty to unlawfully causing bodily harm.
Judge Kenn Bellerose imposed an 18-month suspended sentence and also prohibited Gillingwater from using the Internet, where he met his victim, although the judge conceded the procedure was “a consensual act on the part of the complainant.
The 28-year-old victim, an Alberta man who cannot be named due to a court order, “found himself in a desperate situation,” said Crown prosecutor Lane Wiegers.
The man used the Internet to research how to get a sex change and found a Florida site which directed him to Gillingwater in Saskatchewan, who went by the Web name Top Dog.
Police found several e-mails to Gillingwater from people wanting castrations and some wanting to apprentice under him, Wiegers said.
After the two exchanged several e-mails and agreed on a price of $100, the Alberta man came to Fort Qu’Appelle, a sleepy town of 2,000 an hour east of Regina. Accompanied by his mother, he checked into the local hotel May 11.
Gillingwater showed up at the man’s hotel room with a bag full of medical supplies — forceps, bandages, scalpel — but no anesthetic, Wiegers said.
He sliced open the victim’s scrotum, removed the testicles and sewed him up.
