Acquitted in a decision that sparked an outcry last summer, engineer Simon Houle was eventually sentenced to a year in prison on charges of sexual assault and voyeurism. The Quebec Court of Appeals found numerous errors by the trial judge.
Posted at 12:10 p.m
“The crimes committed by Mr Houle are serious. He abused the victim’s vulnerability and seriously violated her physical and sexual integrity, privacy and dignity,” the Court of Appeals concluded.
In June 2022, after pleading guilty to sexual assault and voyeurism charges, Simon Houle took advantage of Judge Matthieu Poliquin’s leniency by obtaining a parole, a light sentence for such offenses.
This decision had triggered an outcry in civil society and in particular led to demonstrations in front of courthouses. Elected officials had even publicly denounced this decision.
In the Court of Appeal’s view, however, exoneration undermines public confidence in the administration of justice. A reasonable person would not understand that Mr Houle “could escape conviction”, we conclude.
The attack dates back to April 2019. Simon Houle celebrates with friends in a bar. At the end he continues the evening with a friend. The accused talks to the victim on the spot. She then falls asleep in a bedroom without Simon Houle present.
She wakes up, blinded by the light of a camera. Then she feels fingers in her vagina moving back and forth. Her camisole is up and her bra is detached from the front. As she panics, the defendant pulls his fingers back. As the woman gets up and dresses to go to the kitchen, Simon Houle joins her and takes her back to the bedroom on the bed, where she eventually falls asleep again.
In handing down the verdict, Judge Poliquin noted that the incident happened “quickly overall” and that Simon Houle’s intoxication “may allow behavior to be explained” without constituting a defense. The judge also saw “transparency” in the fact that the defendant had confessed to assaulting another woman some years earlier.
On the contrary, Simon Houle showed “ruthlessness” during the attack, which did not take place “quickly”. When the victim fled to the kitchen, the accused actually had time to take nine photos of the woman’s private parts in two places in the apartment.