Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jun 15/01) - A jury found a 58-year-old Yellowknife man guilty Thursday of sexually assaulting his friend's commonlaw wife.
Supreme Court Justice Ted Richard said that Harvey Field took full advantage of "a very quiet, passive and vulnerable individual," when he assaulted the 36-year-old woman over an 18-month period starting in 1995.
The assaults began after Field's friend went on a trip. Field had been smoking marijuana, "and forced himself on her."
Field assaulted the woman five more times in Yellowknife, warning the woman that she would not be believed if she told anyone.
She finally told her husband and police in 1999.
Taking the witness stand in his own defence, Field told the court that the woman had been a willing sexual partner.
The jury took four hours to reach its verdict after receiving instructions from Justice Richard Wednesday afternoon. In sentencing Field, Richard told the court that at the time of the first assault, "the victim was crying and scared."
The victim, said Richard, was a "credible witness." Field's contention that he and the woman had engaged in a consensual sexual relationship was, in Richard's words, "a preposterous tale," that the jury "obviously and not surprisingly didn't believe a word of."
Richard sentenced Field to four years imprisonment, with a "strong recommendation" that the sentence be served at Yellowknife Correctional Centre.
