Crown wants videos as evidence in sex case
Prosecution seeks to introduce police statements against Evan Sandwith, 22, of Rusagonis, at trial on charges alleging sexual offences against 14-year-old girl in 2021
The Crown is asking a court to allow an underage girl’s initial interview with police introduced as part of her evidence at trial against a Rusagonis man accused of sexually assaulting her repeatedly in 2021.
Evan Sandwith, 22, of Noble Court, is scheduled to stand trial in the Court of King’s Bench in two months on 11 indictable charges alleging he sexually assaulted a teenage girl - sometimes with a knife - touched her for sexual purpose and forced her to touch him sexually, on several occasions between August and September 2021.
However, the case was before Justice Thomas Christie on Friday at the Burton Courthouse for a hearing on Crown applications for admission of evidence.
The prosecution previously filed two applications with the court seeking to introduce video recordings of two statements to the RCMP - one from the complainant, and another from a friend of hers as a witness - as evidence at Sandwith’s trial.
The application was made under Section 715.1 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which specifically deals with evidence from witnesses under the age of 18.
That section states “a video recording made within a reasonable time after the alleged offence, in which the victim or witness describes the acts complained of, is admissible in evidence if the victim or witness, while testifying, adopts the contents of the video recording, unless the presiding judge or justice is of the opinion that admission of the video recording in evidence would interfere with the proper administration of justice.”
The intent isn’t for the videos to act in place of the underage witnesses’ testimony, but more a shortcut and as a means to acknowledge that their recollections are more reliable at the time the videos were made than later at trial.
"The order would facilitate the giving of a full and candid account by the witness," each of the Crown applications states.
If Christie admits the videos as evidence, the complainant and the other witness would still be called as witnesses. They’d initially be asked if what they said in the videos were accurate, and if so, the Crown could still ask supplementary questions and the defence would still be able to cross-examine them.
The identity of the complainant is subject to a court-ordered publication ban, and since the other witness is a friend of hers, the Fredericton Independent isn’t naming her either so as to comply with the order.
Starting on Snapchat
Both videos were played during Friday’s hearing.
Crown prosecutors Rachel Anstey and Darlene Blunston, defence lawyer Emily Cochrane and the judge all agreed Friday the key issue to be determined was whether the videos were made “within a reasonable time” after the alleged offences.
Court heard the complainant made her statement to police June 10, 2022, nine months after she says Sandwith violated her. She was 14 years old in August and September 2021.
The supplementary witness gave her statement June 28, 2022, and she was 15 years old in the summer of 2021.
In her statement, the complainant said she started chatting with Sandwith on Snapchat in 2021, and after a while, he started suggesting they engage in sexual activity.
“I always told myself I wouldn’t do it no matter what he said,” the girl told RCMP Const. Jennifer Simon during the interview.
They became friendly during their online chats and would speak on the phone, she said, and he continued to push for sex during those talks as well.
The first time Sandwith sexually assaulted her, the girl reported, was when they met in August 2021 to hang out, but they weren’t alone at first.
“We hung out at the park with my friend,” she said, referring to the park at Assiniboine Avenue Elementary School in Oromocto.
Court heard the small group initially met at the Scholten’s store on Restigouche Road, and then they went to a nearby tunnel.
The complainant’s friend, in her video statement to the RCMP, confirmed they met that day and that Sandwith was there, noting they hung out for about two hours.
“And then I left,” the friend said.
The friend said Sandwith made her feel uneasy, in part because it turned out he was carrying a can of bear mace.
“He was a little bit creepy,” she said, noting there was another female friend with her in the group.
“[The complainant] wasn’t even talking to us, so we just left … They were together.”
The friend told police the complainant later told her about the sexual assault.
‘He made me suck his penis’
The complainant told police that once she was alone with Sandwith that first time, he renewed the pressure for her to touch his penis and for oral sex.
“He pulled down his pants,” she said, noting his penis was exposed, and it was uncomfortable, particularly because they were in a kids’ park.
Sandwith kept urging her to perform oral sex on him, she said, but she repeatedly refused.
“He kept acting like he was hurt by it, you know?” she said.
The girl said he got more aggressive with the pressure, noting he threatened to SWAT her family or cripple them.
SWATting is a practice in which someone falsely reports a critical criminal incident at a residence in an effort to prompt a tactical police response at that location. People have been killed in such incidents in the United States.
The girl said Sandwith told her he was 19 years old at the time, and she’d told him she was only 14.
“He’s five years older than me … I’m scared of what he’ll do.” she told Simon.
“He made me suck his… you know … He made suck… his penis.”
The girl said he didn’t use that term, that he demanded she suck “his dick.”
“Eventually, he just grabbed me and pulled me over,” she said, noting he shoved her head down to his penis. “I kept trying to make him stop.”
She reported the first incident occurred Aug. 20, 2021, which she was able to determine from her Snapchat history with the friend.
After the first incident, the girl said, she felt horrible.
“At the time, I was struggling a lot, like with my mental health,” she told the officer, noting she engaged in self-harm.
“After that, I still chose to hang out with him because I thought he wouldn’t do it again.”
“You understand it’s not your fault, right,” Simon told her as the girl cried in the police interview room.
“Kinda … I shouldn’t have hung out with him again,,” she answered tearfully, noting she feels stupid now for doing so.
“I trusted him … I don’t hang out with guys anymore.”
‘He always had a knife with him’
She said she had a crush on Sandwith at first, but that was before she met him in person.
The complainant said there were three or four subsequent incidents during which he forced himself on her and made her perform oral sex on him.
He also forced his tongue down her throat and groped at her breasts and vagina, she said.
The girl said there were other reasons she was scared of him as well.
He seemed preoccupied with school shootings in the United States and said he wished something like that would happen here, she said.
Sandwith would talk about calling in bomb threats to Oromocto High School and about shooting it up, she said.
“And he always had a knife with him,” the girl said. “He’d show it to me sometimes.”
Sometimes, she said, when Sandwith was pressuring her to suck his penis and she’d say no, he’d use the knife as a means to get his way.
“If I said no to something, he would, like, pull [the knife] out,” the complainant told Simon.
She also said she was scared he’d retaliate for reporting what happened to the RCMP.
“If he knows that I came to the police, I know that he’s going to do something to me,” the complainant said.
She also said Sandwith had assaulted other girls.
“I really want him to get what he deserved,” the girl said.
Sandwith has been accused of and charged with sexual offences against other underage girls, but he’s been twice acquitted of those allegations.
He was acquitted after trial in Fredericton provincial court of September 2020 counts of sexual assault and sexual touching. involving a different underage girl.
At that time, Sandwith was 18 years old and the complainant was 15. She testified he touched her breast over her clothes and attempted to put his hand down her pants, but Sandwith denied those allegations, noting it was a different guy.
Judge Leslie Jackson said he wasn’t sure which account to believe, leaving him with a reasonable doubt in the case.
Sandwith was later charged with indictable counts of sexual assault and sexual touching involving another girl stemming from October 2020 allegations.
He denied those charges and was to stand trial before Christie last summer in the Court of King’s Bench, without a jury, but the complainant in that case and two other witnesses didn’t show up to testify.
After he denied a Crown request for adjournment and no evidence was called in the trial, Christie acquitted Sandwith in that case.
The identities of the complainants in those other cases are also protected by court-ordered publication bans.
Christie directed the prosecution and defence to file written briefs on the video-evidence applications in the next couple of weeks, and he noted he’d render his decision Feb. 9 on whether the videos would be admitted as evidence.
Sandwith’s trial on the August and September 2021 charges is set to begin March 11.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.
Appears he’s been slipping through the cracks on technicalities. I hope the judge allows the videos (aren’t they called a KGB), as it would make it much much easier for these young people to testify. He needs to be stopped!