By Lara Fominoff @LaraFominoff on Twitter

GRAPHIC CONTENT: Southern Alberta man testifies in his own defense at historical sex assault trial

Jan 22, 2019 | 2:17 PM

LETHBRIDGE – WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT NOT SUITABLE FOR SOME READERS.

 A man charged with four counts of sexual assault and two counts of indecent assault against four female extended family members going back more than 30 years, testified in his own defence at Court of Queen’s Bench in Lethbridge Tuesday.

The man told the court the assaults began occurring in the early 1980s when he was 13 or 14 years old, and continued late into the decade, when he started “holding hands” and “kissing” a younger extended family member. That progressed to him touching the young girl’s genitals and using his mouth on them at other family members’ homes. He admitted the incidents happened while playing games like “hide and seek,” in a field, in a family trailer, bedrooms and bathrooms. The man testified that he never used his penis or exposed it, contrary to victim testimony, because he didn’t “have the courage to take it out of his pants.”

The man testified that at no time did any of the alleged victims touch his private parts. In fact, he told the court that he was asked by one of the girls in 1986 to stop what he was doing to her.

The assaults also allegedly occurred against at least three other extended female family members over a period of several years.

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Stating matter-of-factly, the middle-aged man told the court that all the assaults he admitted to, occurred before he went on an LDS mission when he was 18. It was while he was on that mission, that he said what he had done “weighed heavily on him.” The young girls in question were the daughters of a Bishop, and he knew what he did was wrong.

He said he was instructed by an LDS President to write letters of apology to two victims and to talk about how he could change his ways and his values when he came home.

Over the next few decades he said he believed that because no church court was called, the letters of apology had been written, and that he was invited to a family reunion, no further action needed to be taken. He did not turn himself over to police, no one told him he had to, and he didn’t know that he had to.

During cross examination, the Crown asked the man whether he had ever told his parents about the assaults. He said that his mother did ask him some questions when he came back from his mission, but that he didn’t respond to her, because he was still ashamed and didn’t want to talk to her.

He testified that other family members didn’t ask for details about what he had done, and he did not volunteer the information. He was not, however, allowed to be alone with those female extended family members.

Asked when he became a Bishop in the church whether there had been any unresolved sins, the man again replied no, because he had essentially repented in the past. However, the Crown cited two other female complainants, one of whom he told the court he tried to touch but was punched and rebuffed. The other, he denied ever being alone with. The man told the Crown that those instances were “for God to decide.”

The trial continues Wednesday.