Who is telling the truth? That’s now for the judge to decide in the trial of a former South Shore police officer accused of sexually abusing a student in her home, who defends herself by arguing that she tended to agree.
• Also read: Sexual Assault Trial: South Shore Police Officer Thought He Had Student’s Consent
• Also read: Process for sexual assault: “I trusted him, he’s a police officer,” says the victim
“There is a gray area in some files. Here’s the gist, it’s clear someone lied to me this week. The two versions are difficult to reconcile,” Judge Bertrand St-Arnaud said during today’s pleadings in the Yannick Dauphinais case.
The former interim sergeant of the Roussillon intercommunal police department has been on trial before the Longueuil court since Monday.
The 43-year-old man met the complainant at a gas station in the summer of 2021, then followed her into the parking lot of an IGA to ask for her mobile phone number.
The next morning, he texted her asking for her address, then invited himself over to her home during her break, where he allegedly sexually abused her. The complainant, according to Dauphinais, was more sympathetic to the relationship.
The then 28-year-old gave him her cell phone number at the IGA, answered his text messages and even invited him to her home, said defense lawyer Me Félix Rémillard-Larose. It would even have been her who unbuttoned his pants and took off his [sexe] to masturbate him,” the lawyer pleaded.
Romanticized and overdone
“Read the text messages again, you’ll understand that she never invited him. He has none of that in the evidence,” Crown Prosecutor Me Amélie Rivard suggested in court.
The romanticized version of Dauphinais is exaggerated and “doesn’t deserve to be believed,” she says.
” In the head [de l’accusé], there might have been a flirt. In fact, if we take the complainant’s testimony, the text messages, and the surveillance cameras, there is no flirting. Above all, there is one individual who imposes himself,” said Me Rivard.
Especially since the woman informed a friend of her distress in the hour after the alleged bodily harm via text message and on the same evening personally. In tears, she confided everything to her boss in the days that followed. They testified to that during the trial.
“There is nothing other than aggression to justify this state of affairs. When the defendant speaks of nice chemistry, of love at first sight between the two, that hardly reconciles with the rest of the evidence. It undermines his credibility,” Me Rivard said.
The prosecutor’s office also notices the police officer’s uniform, especially when he approaches the woman: “We cannot ignore that he has a uniform, a belt, a gun, a police car. It allows for a certain power […], but he is unable to see the effects. It’s totally unreasonable. »
The judge will announce his verdict in July.
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