Regina v. E.W.L. [Provincial Court – February 2015]

EWL was a married middle aged man with no prior history of adverse involvement with the police. A disgruntled female co-worker accused EWL of touching her breasts on two separate occasions. On one of those occasions, according to the alleged victim, a second female employee was standing right beside them and witnessed the entire event.

As part of the police investigation they conducted an indepth interview of the eye witness. Well . . . this person told the police that she was present at the relevant time but she did not observe the incident alleged by the victim. The police chose to dismiss her account of events and proceeded to have EWL arrested and charged with two counts of sexual assault. Patrick Fagan entered pleas of not guilty and scheduled the matter for trial.

The assigned Crown prosecutor sought to enhance the prospects of a conviction by refusing to subpoena or otherwise compel the attendance of the eye witness to testify. This patently unfair tactic backfired on the Crown at trial and the credibility of the alleged victim was sufficiently undermined through cross-examination to give rise to reasonable doubt.

Bottom Line: At the conclusion of trial proceedings verdicts of not guilty were entered on all counts.