Rusagonis man’s sex-crime trial set for March
Evan Sandwith, 21, faces third set of charges alleging sexually based offences after being acquitted twice of allegations involving other complainants
A Rusagonis man facing 11 indictable charges alleging sex-related offences involving an underage complainant will stand trial in superior court in several months’ time.
Evan Sandwith, 21, of Noble Court, elected earlier this year to be tried before a Court of King’s Bench judge alone on 11 counts, and he appeared at the Burton Courthouse for King’s Bench motions day Tuesday to confirm his trial dates.
Justice Thomas Christie noted Sandwith’s five-day trial is scheduled to begin March 11, though the defendant will appear before the Court of King’s Bench on Nov. 15 for a pre-trial conference.
Sandwith faces the following charges:
- sexual assault on the complainant - a minor female - with a knife, touching her for a sexual purpose and invitation to touch him for a sexual purpose, all on Aug. 20, 2021;
- another set of the same three offences but between Sept. 1 and 30, 2021, again involving the same girl;
- a third such set of those three charges against the same complainant, alleged to have occurred Sept. 25, 2021;
- and sexual assault and sexual touching against the same girl Sept. 11, 2021;
All counts, laid by the RCMP, refer to alleged events in or near Oromocto.
Though the charges against Sandwith are all indictable, he wasn’t given the opportunity to test the Crown evidence against him through a preliminary inquiry because the Office of the provincial Attorney General filed a preferred indictment.
That’s a rarely used avenue open to the Crown that forgoes a preliminary inquiry.
Sandwith has been before the courts twice before in recent years, accused of sexual offences against two other underage girls.
However, in both of those cases, he was acquitted.
Provincial court Judge Leslie Jackson acquitted him of September 2020 counts of sexual assault and sexual touching. involving a different underage female complainant.
In that case, the complainant testified she was 15 years old when Sandwith touched her breast over her clothes and attempted to put his hand down her pants.
Sandwith, who was 18 years old at the time of those allegations, denied he did any such thing, noting the girl was with a different male friend at Hazen Park in Oromocto when the events she described occurred.
The judge said he was left with a reasonable doubt as he found both the girl and the defendant to be credible.
Sandwith subsequently faced indictable charges of sexual assault and sexual touching involving another underage girl. Those RCMP charges alleged events in Oromocto between Oct. 29 and 30, 2020.
His Court of King’s Bench trial before Christie, without a jury, was scheduled to take place in June, but on the day it was to begin, the complainant and two other witnesses were a no-show in court.
The judge denied a prosecution motion for an adjournment. As the Crown then called no evidence against the defendant, Christie found him not guilty.
There are court-ordered publication bans in place in all three cases prohibiting the identification of the complainants.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.