Father denies sexually touching daughter in bathtub

A father denied sexually touching his daughter while she was bathing in 2019 during his testimony in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench on Tuesday.

The accused, 42, faces charges of sexual assault and sexual touching of a person under 16 years old.

The Sun cannot name the alleged victim nor the accused due to a publication ban on information that could identify the girl.

The alleged victim testified on Monday that in August 2019 her father used his finger to penetrate her for roughly 30 seconds while she was bathing. She said her father’s girlfriend was present when it happened.

The girl said she didn’t tell anyone about the situation until October 2022, when she was at a party with about seven other people and shared her experience. Her peers encouraged her to tell her mom, which she did the next day, she told the court.

She said her mom called the police roughly a week later.

The accused testified Tuesday that he and his daughter’s relationship was difficult at times but that he loved and cared for her.

“We’re both intelligent and we both like to argue,” he said.

“You love your daughter?” defence lawyer Jonathan Richert asked.

“Very much,” the accused responded. At one point in his testimony, he said he would “give my life for her tomorrow.”

The accused testified that after he and his ex-wife (the girl’s mother) split up around May 2019, he stayed in the family home for a short time before he moved in with his girlfriend and her mother.

He said he had their three children every other weekend until July of that year, when he told their mother that another woman was pregnant with his baby. He told the court she didn’t allow the children to see him after that.

He said the children were allowed to see him again in August, but only for a few hours at a time. He said they weren’t allowed overnight visits until around mid-September, when he bought them clothing that they could wear if they stayed the night.

When Richert asked if there was any reason he would be with his daughter while she was bathing, he said no.

He said that since his children weren’t allowed to stay overnight in August, there was no reason that his daughter would have been taking a bath there.

Crown attorney Reid Girard questioned the accused about his mental state during the time period that the girl alleged the incident happened and referred to a statement he gave to police after he was arrested, in which he agreed with the police officer that it was a “shit year” for him.

“You weren’t really happy in August of 2019, were you?”

The accused said that while it was a stressful time, he was happy because he was about to have another child and already had three.

“So, aside from all these major events happening in your life that caused it to be a shit year, you were still in a good mood. Is that your evidence?”

The accused said he was good at compartmentalizing.

Girard suggested that the accused wasn’t thinking clearly during the summer of 2019 and that the girl’s allegations were true.

“I’m going to suggest that what (she) described, you putting your fingers inside of her vagina, that that actually happened, didn’t it?”

“No, it did not,” the man said.

One of the defence witnesses was not available to testify due to personal reasons, the court heard, and the trial will be scheduled to continue at a later date.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com