TORONTO — The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld the conviction of a man charged with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a female from Thunder Bay.
A court-ordered publication ban prohibits the release of any information that could reveal the identity of the victim.
The man was convicted after a trial in Barrie in 2022, but a charge of forcible confinement was stayed, and he was acquitted of a charge of assault with a weapon.
He appealed the two convictions on the basis that the trial judge had misapprehended the evidence, that there were inconsistencies in the complainant's evidence, and that she equivocated on whether she had consented to sexual relations with him.
The victim testified she agreed to go with the man to buy drugs, and that she blacked out after they both used drugs in his car.
When she woke up, they were driving on the highway east of Thunder Bay, and ended up in Barrie three days later.
The complainant said they then checked into a hotel, where the man barricaded the door, became aggressive and insisted she prostitute herself to pay him back for the drugs.
He then sexually assaulted her, but while he was sleeping she fled the hotel room in her bare feet to get help.
One of the reasons on which the man based his appeal was that the trial judge found that he knew at the outset that the female was a drug addict, a finding that he said was based on the judge's misapprehension of the evidence.
The three judges who heard the appeal ruled that "It was open to the trial judge to draw that inference . . . The conduct of the appellant virtually from the time he met the complainant supported the inference that he knew she was a regular drug user and that he purchased drugs for her as a means of holding control over her while taking her far from her home in Thunder Bay."
They also concluded that, although both the accused and the victim purchased drugs at different times on the car trip south, "the appellant paid for all of the drugs and clearly controlled when and how the drugs would be purchased and used."
The man's defence was based in part on the complainant allegedly being a willing participant in the journey, and cited her admission that she could have left his vehicle before they got to Barrie, but did not.
She had also told police along the way that she was okay, but testified that her abductor had a knife sitting beside him. No knife was ever recovered.
Despite the inconsistencies in her story, the appeal court said her actions did not negate the elements of unlawful confinement or kidnapping.
They noted the trial judge's finding that the man refused to tell her where they were going despite being asked repeatedly, ignored her request to return to Thunder Bay, that she was fearful, and that she had no money, no personal affects, and no identification with her.
Finally the judges dismissed the man's submission that the trial judge made an error on the issue of consent to sexual activity, saying "her description of how intercourse occurred is a classic example of one person having their way with another person in a completely unbalanced, one-sided situation."
