Daughter testifies in Brandon sexual assault trial

A 17-year-old girl testified in a Brandon courtroom Monday that she was “confused” about how to feel after her father allegedly penetrated her with his finger while she was taking a bath in 2019.

The accused pleaded not guilty to the charges of sexual assault and sexually touching a person under 16 years old before the Crown called their witnesses — the alleged victim and her mother.

The Sun cannot name the alleged victim or the accused due to a publication ban on information that could identify the youth.

The alleged victim told the court that in August 2019, when she was 11 years old, her father digitally penetrated her for roughly 30 seconds while she was bathing.

“He told me that he was teaching me how to clean myself, and he asked me if it felt good and that it was OK if it did,” she testified.

She said her father’s girlfriend was also present, but when she looked at the woman, she wasn’t looking.

The girl said she didn’t tell anyone about it until October 2022 when she was at a party with about seven other people. She testified that they were sharing stories about “stuff” of that nature and she felt comfortable enough to share what happened to her.

Her peers were supportive and encouraged her to tell her mom, which she did the next day, she told the court.

Roughly a week later, she said her mom went to the police.

She said she was living part-time with each parent at the time, but after she told her mother about the allegations, she started staying strictly with her mother.

Defence lawyer Jonathan Richert questioned the girl about what she meant when she described feeling confused after the incident.

“It’s my dad, and you would think if it’s your dad, it would be OK,” she said.

Richert also brought up the fact that at the alleged victim’s last meeting with the Crown, she said the incident happened in 2020 and not 2019. On Monday, she said she was mistaken, and it did occur in 2019.

He asked her about the party she was at, where she disclosed what had allegedly happened to her.

“You finally felt comfortable telling a group of people that you really trusted they wouldn’t judge you, right?” Richert asked. The girl agreed.

He read the names of the people at the party from her statement to police in 2022, pointing out that she didn’t know several of their last names.

“You would agree with me that half or more of those people, you didn’t know them well enough to be sure about what their last names were, right?”

The girl said that some of the friends she had only known for a year or slightly longer, so she didn’t know their last names.

When asked what stories they shared, she couldn’t recall.

He asked whether her friends were concerned that she was going to stay with her dad after the party, and she responded that by the time the party ended, she was in a better mood, so they weren’t worried.

Earlier in her testimony, the girl said she and her father didn’t get along very well and that she wanted to live with her mother full time.

“When you made these allegations in the fall of 2022, didn’t that kind of solve your problem? You got to go live with Mom full-time … Is that not the real reason why you made these allegations?” Richert asked.

He added: “If I were to suggest to you that the reason is that when you disclosed this to your friends, everybody else was telling their stories, you wanted to feel included … Would that be the reason why you made these allegations?”

She denied Richert’s suggestions.

In her mother’s testimony, she told the court that she and the accused had been together since 2002. The pair had three children together and split up in 2019.

Shortly after, she met her new husband, and the father got into a new relationship as well.

She testified that her daughter told her about the incident on Oct. 31, 2022, and she called police the next day as she was trying to “fathom” what had happened.

The trial continues.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com