WARNING: This article contains details of sexual assault.
A judge has found an unnamed health-care worker at a long-term care facility in the Central Okanagan guilty of three counts of sexual assault against two of his co-workers while they were staying in Vancouver due to wildfire evacuations.
In the ruling, published on March 31, Justice H. Dillon found the evidence presented by Crown witnesses and those who were assaulted to be “credible and reliable,” with “no credible evidence to contradict their evidence.”
The names of both the accused and the complainant are protected by a publication ban aimed at protecting the identities of victims of sexual assault.
According to the ruling, the assaults took place on Aug. 22-23, 2023, in Vancouver, when a long-term care facility in Kelowna was evacuated due to the McDougall Creek wildfire threatening homes and buildings in the area.
Along with residents of the facility, long-term care home workers were sent to the Vancouver area in order to provide continuity of care.
CBC News has reached out to Interior Health for comment on the case.
One male and five female care workers were put up in two Airbnb rentals in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood, the ruling says.
A male long-term care worker, identified in the ruling as J.M.M., was housed alongside a work colleague identified as B.H.
Three co-workers — identified as J.M., R.W. and M.P.H. — were placed in a separate home along with a fourth person who was not a witness in the case.
J.M.M. and B.H. went to visit the other home on the evening of Aug. 22, where they socialized and drank.
“As the evening progressed, the five-person group, comprised of J.M.M., and his four female coworkers (B.H., J.M., R.W. and M.P.H.) decided to go to a nearby pub to continue their socializing,” the judge wrote in an overview. ” The five remained at the pub until well past midnight, likely closer to around 1 a.m.”
According to testimony, J.M.M. gave J.M., a 60-year-old married woman, “an unwanted kiss” at the pub, witnessed by the other three members of the group.
“She was shocked. She said ‘no’. She did not consent to the kiss. She turned back to M.P.H. and to R.W. who were sitting to her left and mouthed or said ‘help me’,” Justice Dillon wrote.
Several hours later, the group returned home, the ruling says. It was decided that J.M.M. and B.H. would stay with their other colleagues, with J.M.M. sleeping on the couch on the main floor while B.H. shared a room with J.M.
“B.H. testified that as she slept next to J.M., she felt an insistent presence next to her of movement and ruffling which she initially ignored because she thought it might be J.M.,” Dillon wrote.
“She returned back to sleep. She became more fully awake when she felt a different kind of pressure that caused her to believe it was someone other than J.M. It felt as if someone was firmly pressed up against her and their hands were roaming over and touching her body… The hands were grabbing her body inappropriately as if someone was trying to be intimate.”
She left the room and went downstairs to discover J.M.M. was not on the couch as agreed. She then went to M.P.H. and R.W. and explained what was going on.
The trio began looking around the home and R.W. entered J.M.’s room “to find J.M.M. on top of and between the legs of J.M. who appeared to be asleep and unware of what was happening to her.”
“His arms were tucked under her shoulders, her legs were apart, and he was grinding on top of her,” the judge wrote.
“R.W. grabbed J.M.M.’s left shoulder and pulled him off. As she did so, she saw that he was naked from the waist down. J.M. was clothed but J.M.M. was not wearing any boxers or pants.”
The judge also accepted the evidence that J.M.M. touched R.W. “inappropriately and in a sexual manner on her breast and buttocks during the walk from the pub to the Airbnb.”
J.M.M. did not testify in his defence.
The judge noted that in the immediate aftermath of the assault, the human resources department of the group’s employer was called and an investigator from Vancouver Coastal Health interviewed the complainants. Police also conducted an investigation.
The judge found the evidence presented to be “straightforward” and “consistent,” with the testimony from the workers to be “credible and reliable,” with J.M.M. guilty on all three counts of sexual assault.
If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911. For support in your area, you can look for crisis lines and local services via the Ending Sexual Violence Association of Canada database.
