The appellant appealed a conviction for sexual assault arising from allegations that he touched the complainant’s vagina during a therapeutic massage.
He argued that the verdict was unreasonable due to the trial judge’s misapprehension of evidence and that the trial judge applied a higher level of scrutiny to the defence evidence than to the complainant’s evidence.
The appeal court held that several minor misapprehensions of evidence identified in the record were peripheral and did not affect the core credibility findings or reasoning process leading to conviction.
The court also found no basis to conclude that the trial judge applied uneven scrutiny to the parties’ evidence.
The conviction was upheld.
