Accused says woman ‘fabricated’ assault allegations

A 43-year-old man became emotional in a Brandon courtroom as he denied accusations of raping and assaulting his former partner, alleging she “fabricated” the incidents to alienate him from their child.

The man, who can’t be identified due to a publication ban, told his lawyer, Bob Harrison, that he never sexually assaulted, kicked, slapped, strangled or dragged the woman by her hair during their relationship in a small western Manitoba town.

“That didn’t happen, and it’s not in my character to do something like that. I’ve been trying to lead good examples for my sons to respect women,” the accused testified Wednesday in Court of King’s Bench.

The man pleaded not guilty to three counts of assault, assault by choking and sexual assault before Justice Scott Abel on Tuesday, which marked the start of the two-day trial.

Harrison referenced the woman’s testimony from the previous day, in which she claimed the accused raped her on five occasions between 2017 and April 2020 as she lay next to their son in bed.

The man denied this accusation by saying, “That is totally against everything I’m about.”

He also denied striking the woman’s head with a partially closed fist when she was more than seven months pregnant and a separate incident where she alleged he pushed her into a wall, causing a hairline fracture on her arm.

The accused said he recalled a time when his partner mentioned slipping on a patch of ice outside of her workplace, adding that she had several bruises on her body from her “strenuous” job at a water treatment plant.

He denied the woman’s allegation that he told her to lie about her arm injury to a nurse practitioner when she went to a medical clinic or that he escorted her to the clinic to ensure she didn’t say he hurt her.

The man gave a drastically different account of another incident in which the woman alleged she was dragged from bed by her arm and hair, was strangled on the ground and thrown outside for about 10 minutes in freezing temperatures in the winter of 2019.

The accused said his partner attacked him when he came home late in the evening after doing repairs on a friend’s house and having a drink together.

“As soon as I came through the front door, she started attacking me, like hitting me and calling me ‘son of a bitch,’” he said, adding that she tried kicking him in the groin.

The man testified he put his arms around her, “shuffled” her outside and told her to “cool off, bitch” before closing the door.

“I was just trying not to be attacked. I didn’t know what to do,” he said.

“I felt unsafe in my own home.”

The woman was outside for about one to two minutes before his son from a previous relationship came downstairs and let her back inside, while he was in the living room where he would later fall asleep, he said.

During cross-examination, the man said he started dating the woman in 2014 because he felt bad that she had lost custody of her daughter from a previous relationship and hoped to have a family with her.

He said their relationship was unhealthy and that she would assault him frequently.

When Crown attorney Reid Girard asked the accused whether he had concerns about the safety of his two sons residing with the woman given his assault allegations, the man said he had no reason to believe she abused the children.

The man said he never felt angry toward the woman and struggled to understand why she assaulted him or often locked him out of their home.

He admitted to locking her outside during the 2019 incident and believed she was wearing slippers but couldn’t recall whether it was a cold night with a temperature of -40 C with the wind chill.

Girard suggested the accused’s version of that night was incorrect.

In response, the man said: “I’m going to suggest to you that you’re misled and it’s not true and … I’m sorry that you feel that way.”

When Girard suggested the accused raped the woman as their son lay next to them in bed, the man denied ever sleeping in the same bed with his son and partner, saying he had only slept on the living room couch.

The accused said he didn’t keep any clothes in a dresser in the woman’s bedroom and would only sleep in the bedroom with her if the children were away.

During closing arguments, Girard said the accused’s testimony was “endlessly self-serving” and that he “stringently distanced himself from any wrongdoing.”

He said the accused evaded direct questions and was combative, unclear and inconsistent during cross-examination.

Harrison said the man held firm in refuting the allegations of physical and sexual violence. He said the woman’s evidence shouldn’t be trusted and showed inconsistencies between her testimony and her police statement in 2023.

Girard acknowledged the woman’s inconsistencies but noted she was honest about her inability to recall specific dates or details, adding that her testimony was otherwise clear, straightforward and reliable.

The judge reserved his decision until Oct. 8.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com