Crown stays sexual assault charges after teenage girl admits lying

Charges were stayed for a man accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in an abandoned house mid-trial after the youth admitted she was lying about what happened during cross-examination.

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison peppered the 15-year-old victim with questions in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench on Monday, suggesting she feared getting in trouble if she now spoke the truth despite telling police his client, 22, inappropriately touched her in a July 2024 incident.

The girl, who can’t be identified due to a publication ban, initially held firm in her testimony, saying, “No, he did touch me inappropriately,” before Harrison posed the question again, and she answered, “I can’t really understand.”

Harrison asked the question a third time, saying, “I’m going to suggest that you’re concerned that if you tell the truth that he didn’t touch you, that you may get in trouble. That’s the situation, isn’t it?”

The girl paused for four seconds before answering, “Yes,” as she fidgeted with a stuffed dog. She testified via video conference while sitting next to her grandmother in a child-friendly room in the courthouse.

The court took a 15-minute recess before Crown attorney Caroline Lacey announced the charges for sexual assault and sexual interference would be stayed and the accused would sign a peace bond prohibiting him from having any contact with the girl.

The accused, who pleaded not guilty to both charges at the start of the one-day trial before Justice Scott Abel, slumped down in his chair and rested his head on a table upon hearing the update.

He was never called to testify that morning.

During the girl’s Crown testimony, she described how two men asked for her and her friend’s Snapchat usernames when they crossed paths on the street near Superstore in Brandon on July 24, 2024. The girl’s friend gave the men their usernames and the girls agreed to meet with them later that night at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen on 10th Street.

The girl said the group got together at the restaurant around midnight before heading to the playground at Betty Gibson School, followed by picking up a 24-pack of Twisted Teas at a beer vendor downtown.

She said her friend lied to the men about their ages over text by saying they were 16 and 17 even though she was 13 years old at the time. She didn’t know the age of the accused.

After the men paid for the alcohol, the group went to a vacant house and sat inside talking. The girl said the accused offered her alcohol and told her to start drinking.

At one point, her friend went into another room with the other man.

“So, then I was stuck with (the accused), and (he) started taking advantage of me and was doing sexual things to me,” she said.

“He was touching … parts of my body that I did not give him consent to. He was trying to take my clothes off.”

She testified that she tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen and continued touching her breasts and genital area. He also bent her over the stairs outside and was moving her body back and forth against his.

She said they were both fully clothed during the incidents.

When her friend and the other man returned to the front entrance area, the group left and went to the other man’s house, which was nearby. When they got to the house, she said the accused was coercing her into having sex with him.

“He wouldn’t stop begging even when I said no, and he would keep bringing it up, and then he’d get mad at me when I said no,” she said.

The girl said she and her friend left the house around 3:30 a.m. because she felt uncomfortable and unsafe. She said the men chased after them when they noticed she had left with several cans of Twisted Teas in her backpack before she gave them back.

“I felt very taken advantage of,” she said. “I was like scared, and we were all drinking, and it was just like a lot.”

She estimated she consumed between eight and 10 alcoholic drinks. The next morning, she told a worker at her group home and her mother what had happened and then reported the incident to police, she said.

In cross-examination, the girl testified she told the accused she was 13 years old before she left the house. The defence pulled out a transcript of her statement to police in which she admitted to telling the man she was 15 instead of 13.

When Harrison asked her why she would lie about her age to his client, she said she wasn’t sure and that she “just made a mistake.”

He brought up a conversation the girl and her friend had at the police station about how they originally talked about lying to police in their statements.

The girl said her friend asked her to lie about what happened because she wanted to pursue a relationship with the other man in the incident, but in the end, they both told police the truth.

Harrison also made suggestions to the girl, including that the accused had never tried to pull her pants down, bend her over, touch her vagina or touch her inappropriately at all, but she disputed these claims.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com