Following a judge-alone criminal trial arising from violence between former intimate partners, the court acquitted on criminal harassment but convicted on assault, assault with a weapon, sexual assault, and two counts of mischief.
The court accepted the complainant's evidence that the accused destroyed her phone, struck her repeatedly, used a bathroom door as a weapon, damaged her belongings, and obtained sexual access only after offering phone access needed for safe departure.
Applying the Criminal Code consent provisions and sexual assault jurisprudence, the court held that any ostensible agreement to sexual activity was not legally valid and was in any event vitiated by fear, fraud, and abuse of trust, and that continued crying and requests to stop eliminated any air of reality to a mistaken-belief defence.
The criminal harassment count failed because, despite repeated and distressing communications, the Crown did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused knew those communications were harassing in light of the complainant's continued engagement with him.
