Alleged victim testifies she was 13 when Ed John sexually assaulted her
WARNING: This text incorporates graphic content material and should have an effect on those that have skilled sexual violence or know somebody affected by it.
The trial of outstanding Indigenous chief and former B.C. cupboard minister Ed John started Monday in B.C. Supreme Courtroom in Prince George with emotional testimony from the alleged sufferer in entrance of a small gallery of onlookers.
John, 73, is charged with 4 counts of getting sexual activity with a feminine with out consent, a cost that existed within the Felony Code of Canada when the alleged offences befell in 1974. There have been quite a few revisions to the code since then, and the cost not exists beneath the present code.
The alleged sufferer testified Monday that the sexual assaults started when she was 13 years outdated and an worker of John’s, who was 25 on the time and a latest graduate of the College of Victoria. He was the director of the Doh Day De Claa Friendship Centre in Prince George and she or he was employed to assist with youth programming.
“He was a hero in my eyes,” she mentioned about John.
She advised the court docket she was conscious he was a college graduate and believed he was both a lawyer already, or was heading to legislation faculty.
Defence attorneys declare the encounters had been consensual and questioned the witness’s timeline of occasions. They tried to throw doubt on her recollections by declaring inconsistencies in her description of John’s hair on the time and previous statements made to police.
John sat within the courtroom Monday, sporting a plain black swimsuit.
The witness’s story didn’t change all through cross examination.
She testified that John assaulted her twice in his workplace on the Doh Day De Claa Friendship Centre.
She alleges the opposite two offences occurred west of Prince George when John claimed to be driving her to a youth convention. She says they by no means made it to the convention. As an alternative, he assaulted her twice in distant spots alongside Freeway 16.
The primary assault allegedly befell within the entrance seat of his Volkswagen Beetle.
The second assault allegedly occurred on the grounds of the previous Lejac Residential College, the place each John and the witness had been compelled to attend, although they weren’t college students there on the similar time.
The witness claimed she was afraid to withstand his assaults as a result of he was her boss and her solely experience again to Prince George.
“I did what he requested me to do … If I mentioned no, then what?” she mentioned when defence lawyer Tony Paisana requested why she did not battle again. “Would he have left me there for the bears?”
The alleged sufferer testified that the offences all occurred over the spring and summer time of 1974 within the space of Prince George. However John’s attorneys recommend the encounters occurred the next summer time, when the alleged sufferer would have been 14.
John is the hereditary chief of the Tl’azt’en Nation and was appointed to the B.C. cupboard as minister for youngsters and households from November 2000 to June 2001. He’s a outstanding Indigenous chief and lawyer who has suggested the First Nations Summit and helped craft the Charlottetown Accord in addition to the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Individuals (UNDRIP).
The trial will proceed this week.
Assist is offered for anybody who has been sexually assaulted. You’ll be able to entry disaster strains and native assist companies by this Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you happen to’re in fast hazard or worry in your security or that of others round you, please name 911.
