SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A 58-year-old man was found not guilty Thursday after being granted a retrial on charges of sexual interference against three girls.
According to Justice Karen Shaner of the NWT Supreme Court, the evidence provided by Crown prosecutors failed to meet the burden of proof. She also said she wasn't convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused, Gordon Randolph Larsen, committed the crime.
The Haines Junction, Yukon, resident was sentenced to three years in prison on three counts of sexual interference after the first trial in 2011, but was later granted an appeal on the basis that Supreme Court Justice John Vertes unreasonably rejected his evidence. He was granted a retrial on June 4, 2012.
However, during the new trial Larsen faced only one charge of sexual interference and heard testimony from only one complainant and the accused. The Crown declined to comment on why the two other now-adult complainants were not involved.
The incident between the complainant and Larsen allegedly happened in Yellowknife sometime in 1991.
The complainant testified that at the age of eight or nine she woke from a nightmare and went to her parent's bedroom to rouse them. When she started banging on the door, Larsen, who was sleeping on a couch not far from the room, told her to stop because she would make her parents mad. He then told her to lie with him on the couch, she said Wednesday. She got into his sleeping bag with him, crawled to the bottom and curled into a fetal position. Next, she lay on her back beside him and at that point Larsen allegedly touched her inappropriately.
Larsen delivered a similar story but denied ever touching the complainant inappropriately and said he slept with a blanket. He calmly and politely recounted waking up to the child saying she had a nightmare. He told her to lay down at the foot of the couch. After about five or 10 minutes, he said, the girl's father came out and Larsen told him his daughter had had a nightmare. The man grunted and continued on with his morning routine, Larsen testified.
During cross-examination Larsen admitted that during those five or 10 minutes there was enough time for him to touch the complainant inappropriately.
Defence counsel Eamon O'Keeffe argued his client's testimony should be believed because his story makes sense, he had a reasonably good recollection of the events and his demeanour throughout the trial didn't suggest he was lying.
O'Keeffe also suggested the complainant's recollection of the events seemed closer to a child's nightmare than something that actually happened. It seems unlikely, he said, that someone would commit a sexual assault outside the parents' door after the child banged on it. Plus, he did not think it was physically possible for his client, who was six-foot-one and 225 pounds at the time of the incident, and the complainant to have fit in the sleeping bag together.
In contrast, Crown prosecutor Marc Lecorre said the accused's evidence confirmed the accuracy of almost all of the complainant's testimony. He confirmed he lived there, that he slept on the couch and that he called her over. As for the banging on the door, he said, it would have confirmed to Larsen that her parents were asleep.
In her decision, Shaner said she had no tangible reason to reject Larsen's evidence. It did not seem contrived and was fairly clear and consistent, she said. However, the complainant's testimony about crawling to the bottom of the sleeping bag while Larsen was inside caused Shaner to question the complainant's recollection of the event. It seems physically impossible, she said.
Larsen declined to comment after the decision and quietly left the courthouse with his lawyer.
