Regina v. M.I.T. [Provincial Court – January 2017]

MIT is a highly educated well-placed professional actively involved in sports as a player and official.  During the course of a weekend tournament MIT and another person in attendance at the tournament (I’ll call that person YY) ended up spending the night together at a local motel.  Several weeks later YY reported that he/she had been sexually assaulted by MIT.  In spite of the fact that the police were fixed with knowledge that multiple witnesses described YY as being “all over” MIT at the bar the police charged MIT with sexual assault contrary to section 271 of the Criminal Code.

Patrick Fagan entered a plea of not guilty and scheduled the matter for trial. Prior to commencement of trial proceedings Patrick Fagan discovered that YY had communicated with MIT a couple of days after the alleged sexual assault during which YY implored MIT to exercise “discretion” relative to their encounter at the motel room. YY stated that if word of the occurrence got out that it would place YY’s current relationship and employment in jeopardy. Well as matters turned out, sport tournaments not being the most “discrete” of events, the proverbial cat was soon out of the bag and rumors of the motel encounter abounded.  A complaint of sexual assault followed shortly thereafter.

Bottom Line: Not surprisingly, on the verge of trial proceedings, YY (faced with Defence knowledge of the foregoing) no longer wished to proceed to trial.

The matter was resolved by way of the issuance of a “Peace Bond” and the charge of sexual assault was completely withdrawn.