At the Granby courthouse on Friday, the trial of Christophe Normand, who is accused of luring a 15-year-old girl and inciting her to have sexual contact, ended with pleas from prosecutors.
The former Alouettes player had a mistaken but sincere belief that the complainant was old enough to consent.
At the time of the events, Christophe Normand no longer had the title of teacher.
The teenager was not vulnerable and made fun of him in her conversations, conversations of a sexual nature that she herself had, argued the defendant's lawyer, who is calling for his acquittal ©.
In the summer of 2022, the 32-year-old tried to establish sexual relations with a former upper secondary school student to whom he had taught ethics and religious culture for a few weeks as a substitute teacher four months earlier.
When he contacted her on social media, he was no longer teaching and had returned to his job as a football player for the Montreal Alouettes.
In his opinion, and according to what the complainant had told him in the exchange on Messenger, he sincerely believed that she was 16 years old, which was the age of consent.
“She is not talking to her 'teacher' but to a 30-year-old man who 'maintains' her, a man who has a partner and children. “The defendant does not care about her, even if she does not care by showing her friends the content of certain messages,” argued her lawyer, Me Nicolas Cossette.
If she were to turn 16 in the following months, the prosecution insists: “He is the adult, he is the one who had to take appropriate measures to establish her age, unfortunately this failed.” {…} Her Relationship was not the same, they were not on the same “foundation”, according to Me Ariane Duval.
“If you had nothing to blame yourself for, why did you delete the messages with the complainant?” she asked him in cross-examination.
“I didn’t want my partner to know that I was unfaithful to her,” replied Christophe Normand.
However, he did not delete the “daring” conversations he had with his other lovers, which raised doubts about the defendant's credibility, Me Duval argued.
The complainant did not see any malicious intent on her part when she spoke about her perception of the defendant; she did not take him seriously. Christophe Normand did not put any pressure on her and let her decide, the defense emphasizes:
“You must consider the nature of the relationship and not their status in relation to each other {…} You are not the moral police, you do not have to decide whether he was a good spouse or father.” Your job is to find out whether a crime was committed,” Mr. Cossette told Judge Serge Champoux, who will deliver his decision on April 25.