A former Manitoulin Island resident has been found guilty of multiple charges related to the sexual assault of a minor a decade ago.
A publication ban is in effect, preventing any information that would identify the victim from being shared.
The man was convicted of sexual interference, sexual invitation and sexual assault of a young girl. In the decision, issued by Judge Alex Kurke on May 5, the man’s sentence was not specified.
Allegations were brought against the accused several years after the initial incident occurred sometime from late June 2010 to early September 2011.
According to the female victim, on one occasion during the night of a sleepover at a friend’s house, the man led her into the bathroom and pulled down his pants.
He proceeded to hold the victim’s hands on his genitals and rub her hands up and down. After telling the victim that she could perform oral sex, the girl became alarmed and backed out of the room.
At the time, she would have been six or seven years old.
She did not choose to come forward about what happened until after her family moved out of the area where the incident occurred.
According to court documents, the victim’s family was acquainted with the family of the abuser.
“They would get together at the accused’s home in the summer and socialize over a bonfire. The adults would have two or three drinks, and the children played outside by the bonfire or sometimes in the house,” said the judge’s statement.
In addition, the family of the abuser would sometimes provide childcare for the victim and her siblings while their parents were away.
The relationship between both families allegedly ended in August or September 2010 “right before school started” after it was discovered that the mother of the victim and the abuser engaged in sexual activities.
However, the judge determined that the incident could have occurred before the relationship between both families ended.
On the night in question, the victim remembers saying goodnight to her mother before falling asleep in an upstairs bedroom at the abuser’s home.
Sometime during the night, she woke up due to the heat. It was at this time that the abuser met her at the top of the stairs and coaxed her into the bathroom.
After leaving the bathroom, the victim did not go back to sleep, but stayed up with the other children in the household.
“I found the complainant’s evidence to be very compelling. Her narrative about the incident was clear, concise, and yet filled with telling details. She painted a vivid account of the accused’s words and conduct before, during, and after the incident,” wrote Kurke in the decision.
The judge also rejected the denials of the accused in the case and pointed out certain inconsistencies in the defence.
The man downplayed the number of times that the victim had the opportunity to stay over at his house, and changed his testimony from not being alone with the victim in the upstairs bathroom to never being alone with the victim at all.
“His evidence appeared directed towards convincing the court that he never had the opportunity to commit the offences,” he said.
A witness called to testify in the case against the complainant was deemed “uncredible” and “unreliable.”
According to Kurke, the witness’s testimony was “self-serving,” and the information was presented in a way that was meant to portray the allegations as impossible due to general circumstances, though it often contradicted other testimony given in court.
In the witness’s account, the bonfires were not just attended by both families in the case, but by a number of families in the neighbourhood. The witness also said that the children never played inside the house. No other witnesses in the case testified to this effect.
“The defence evidence in this case, either of individual witnesses or in its totality, in the context of all the evidence in the case, does not leave me with a reasonable doubt,” said Kurke.
- Colleen Romaniuk, Local Journalism Initiative, Sudbury Star
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