The accused, L.M., was charged with gross indecency under s. 157 of the Criminal Code, involving the complainant J.M. The Crown alleged the acts occurred between March 1979 and August 1983.
The court accepted J.M.'s evidence of a sexual relationship initiated by L.M., but found J.M.'s evidence regarding the precise timing of events unreliable.
The court was satisfied sexual contact occurred when J.M. was around 17.5 years old.
However, the Crown failed to prove the fourth element of the offence: that the acts constituted "a very marked departure from decent conduct expected of the average Canadian in the circumstances which existed at the time and a crime against public morality," due to the lack of expert evidence on public decency standards from the early 1980s.
Consequently, the accused was found not guilty.
