A Nova Scotia man has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman who has little recollection of the 2014 incident.
Supreme Court Justice N.M. Scaravelli said in a written decision released last week that the man was evasive under questioning and that his testimony contradicted evidence from other witnesses.
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The decision says the assault happened in September 2014 during a cabin party in the small Pictou community of Garden of Eden. The two were strangers at the time.
The victim, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, said she was too intoxicated to remember much of the night, but the next morning she had a flashback of the assault when she felt pain in her rectum while riding an all-terrain vehicle.
The man testified that the victim was sober enough to consent, and the pair had consensual sex.
But witnesses who attended the party said she was staggering and slurring her words.
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The woman had a forensic exam in hospital the next day, and evidence from the swabs matched a DNA sample taken from a cigarette discarded by the accused.
While Scaravelli said that he was not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim was too drunk to consent to sex, he accepted her evidence that she was asleep at the time.
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