Southern Alberta senior not guilty on sexual charges involving minor

The incidents were alleged to have occurred between 2013 and 2017.

Justice D.B. Nixon says, in all of these instances, the crown failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He took issue with an array of statements being inconsistent with one another, witnesses who were not reliable or credible, and numerous pieces of physical evidence being missing.

The girl first met the man when she was just 13 years old in 2013. She had taken a job working at the concession stand at a local recreation centre.

She claims the man would play with her hair, put his hand on her thigh, and grab her butt.

Four years later, she worked for the man at a local campground to clean the bathrooms every Tuesday. However, the girl alleged that she only cleaned the bathroom on the first week. After that, she said she “never cleaned again” and that she was supposed to be available any time of any day for sexual purposes.

According to the youth, this then progressed to her being paid in cash by the man for oral and vaginal sex.

Most of the judge’s issues with inconsistencies came during this period in 2017 when the girl was 17 years old. She had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and admitted that she has struggled with her memory ever since.

She reportedly received $50 per instance of oral sex, but the amount she was allegedly paid for vaginal intercourse differed from the preliminary hearing to the time she was cross-examined in the trial.

At first, the girl said she was given $100 for each time the pair had sex, but she later claimed it was $200.

The number of times the two had oral or vaginal sex was different in her statement to police and her testimony in court.

Either way, the judge estimated that, by her accounts, she would have been paid around $5,600 in total. The accused had a family income of just under $25,000 in 2017, so this would mean that he paid her over 20 per cent of their total household income. The man’s wife handled all of their finances, so Justice Nixon had a hard time believing she would not have been alarmed.

When the arrests occurred, the girl claimed she only had a couple of hundred dollars left of what she was supposedly paid, spending most of the $5,600 on “cookies, toys, and movies,” according to the judge.

Overall, the judge found the girl to not be a credible or reliable witness. The judge claims that the girl’s mother also struggled to recall events properly and had misidentified the man for the man’s son on numerous occasions.

There is also the matter of what happened on July 9, 2017, and what the judge believes constituted further inconsistent statements.

At one point, the girl claimed that she had sex with the man in the basement of his home after being called by the man. She later stated that she had ignored repeated calls by the man to come to his home for sex since she was with her boyfriend at the time.

The man reportedly made a threat that, if the girl had sex with her boyfriend, there would be two bodies and that no one would ever find them. The boyfriend later told court that “maybe” he had said something like that but could not remember for sure.

In the end, Justice Nixon said it was not clear to him whether or not the allegations against the man were true, and in instances where he cannot decide whether to believe witnesses, he must acquit the accused. He added that it is on the crown to provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the person on trial is guilty, and they failed to do that.

by David Opinko

Southern Alberta senior not guilty on sexual charges involving minor

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