The embattled former B.C. cabinet minister Ed John has began his trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Prince George with emotional testimony from the alleged victim.
According to reports, the 73-year-old is charged with four counts of having sexual intercourse with a female without consent, a charge that existed in the Criminal Code of Canada when the alleged offences took place in 1974. It’s imperative to state that there have been a number of revisions to the code since then, and the charge no longer exists under the current code.
At the trial, the alleged victim testified that the sexual assaults began when she was 13 years old and an employee of John, who was 25 at the time and a recent graduate of the University of Victoria. He was the director of the Doh Day De Claa Friendship Centre in Prince George and she was employed to help with youth programming.
She said “He was a hero in my eyes”.
Narrating her ordeal, she told the court that she was aware he was a university graduate and believed he was either a lawyer already, or was heading to law school.
Reacting, the defence lawyers claimed the encounters were consensual and questioned the witness’s timeline of events. It was reported that they attempted to throw doubt on her recollections by pointing out inconsistencies in her description of John’s hair at the time and past statements made to police.
However, the witness’s story did not change throughout cross examination.
In her words, John assaulted her twice in his office at the Doh Day De Claa Friendship Centre.
The victim alleged the other two offences occurred west of Prince George when John claimed to be driving her to a youth conference. She stated that they never made it to the conference. Rather, he assaulted her twice in remote spots along Highway 16.
Delineating on the issue, she said the first assault allegedly took place in the front seat of his Volkswagen Beetle while the second assault allegedly occurred on the grounds of the former Lejac Residential School, where both John and the witness were forced to attend, though they were not students there at the same time.
Also, the witness claimed she was afraid to resist his assaults because he was her boss and her only ride back to Prince George.
When defence lawyer Tony Paisana asked why she didn’t fight back, she said “I did what he asked me to do … If I said no, then what?”
“Would he have left me there for the bears?”
In her narration, the alleged victim testified that the offences all occurred over the spring and summer of 1974 in the area of Prince George. Reacting, John’s lawyers suggest the encounters happened the following summer, when the alleged victim would have been 14.
It’s germane to note that John is the hereditary chief of the Tl’azt’en Nation and was appointed to the B.C. cabinet as minister for children and families from November 2000 to June 2001.
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