A retired Canadian navy officer has been discovered responsible of assault, sexual assault and uttering threats towards a younger feminine cadet aboard a navy sailboat greater than a decade and a half in the past.
The fees towards former petty officer top notch James R. Levesque stemmed from a 2006 crusing of HMCS Oriole, a historic coaching vessel that serves double-duty as a showpiece of the navy on its summer season voyages alongside Canada's coastlines.
The sufferer, who can't be recognized beneath a court-imposed publication ban, testified at a court docket martial listening to in Victoria that Levesque, a senior non-commisioned officer, repeatedly groped her and bodily assaulted her, as soon as leaving bruises on her arms, through the ship's journey that summer season from southern Vancouver Island to Alaska.
He later threatened to have intercourse along with her and go away additional bruising on her physique, regardless of her protests, the court docket heard.
The incidents left the cadet with a lingering concern of crusing and an incapacity to sleep aboard vessels, a big hindrance to her future profession within the navy, she mentioned.
Levesque denied the allegations, pleading not responsible to all three expenses.
'TERRORIZING' TWO MONTHS
There have been no eyewitnesses to the assaults or threats, the court docket heard, whereas the defence supplied testimony from fellow sailors who mentioned the incidents had been by no means relayed up the ship's chain of command.
The prosecution did present testimony from one other lady who was among the many vessel's 24-person crew that summer season. She testified that the sufferer confided in her concerning the assaults and threats, saying the 2 of them would later coordinate their excursions ashore throughout port visits so the sufferer wouldn't be alone, fearing for her security.
The witness additionally testified that a number of the male sailors refused to accompany the sufferer ashore as a result of they might "get soiled appears" from passersby because of the vital bruising on her arms.
The sufferer testified that the assaults made her really feel "scared and actually nugatory," and mentioned that a senior officer discouraged her from reporting the incidents to police.
The court docket was proven greater than 100 photographs taken aboard the ship between June 1 and July 31, 2006. The photographs depicted a celebration environment on the 31-metre ship that summer season, with shirtless male sailors consuming tequila and, in one other photograph, exposing their naked buttocks throughout a seashore go to.
However the prosecution described a "terrorizing" two months for the sufferer aboard the Oriole, the oldest vessel within the Royal Canadian Navy, now based mostly out of Halifax.
"I used to be so excited once I first bought to the ship," the sufferer advised the court docket, including that she "wasn't the identical once more" when the ship arrived again in Esquimalt.
The responsible verdict landed on the eve of a extremely anticipated report into intercourse offences within the Canadian Armed Forces, by which a retired Supreme Courtroom justice urged the army at hand over the prosecution of intercourse crimes in its ranks to the civilian court docket system.
Levesque will probably be sentenced throughout a listening to scheduled to start on July 9.
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