Trial Man charged with sexual assault contends in taped interview sex was consensual

C5

MIKE MULLEN
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL

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SAINT JOHN - Testimony at the sexual assault trial of 19-year-old Raymond Joseph Cyr focused for the second consecutive day Wednesday on a videotaped police interview with the accused about one week after the alleged incident took place during a teenaged house party in Rothesay.

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Kâté LeBlanc/Telegraph-Journal

Raymond Joseph Cyr, the accused in the sexual assault case, walks into the Provincial Building on Charlotte Street Wednesday.

Cyr is charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl who witnesses said had passed out in an upstairs bedroom from drinking too much alcohol.

On the final portion of the videotape, viewed Wednesday by Justice Hugh McLellan and the six-man, six-woman jury, Cyr continued to vehemently deny he had done anything wrong.

He said his sexual liaison with the young woman was consensual in nature.

After leaving Cyr to stew in the interview room for 28 minutes at one point, the videotape showed Senior Const. Craig MacDougall returning to the room to ask him if there was anything about his statement up to that point that he would like to add or amend.

When Cyr said there wasn't, MacDougall bluntly told him his story didn't add up because it was at variance with that of a friend. He told the accused the way he saw it, Cyr had "made a mistake" and was showing a "lack of remorse" by not owning up to what he had done.

Cyr, however, said his prior account - of the sex being consensual until the girl suddenly got upset after the pair were interrupted by another teenaged girl who thought he was cheating on a girlfriend - was the truth.

"This is the story; I'm sticking to it," he said. "I didn't do anything wrong."

During cross-examination of MacDougall, defence counsel David Kelly asked the investigator, "Why wasn't (Cyr) told he could leave at any time?"

"It didn't come up," said MacDougall, adding he didn't believe it was his obligation to tell him.

Noting that Cyr had told MacDougall on the videotape that his lawyer advised him not to say anything, Kelly suggested "it would have been a good time to tell him he could go."

Kelly also suggested to MacDougall that there was something unusual about the complainant coming forward with major new details of the assault, including fellatio and sodomy, months after her original complaint and the laying of charges against his client. But the police officer said it wasn't unusual for sexual assault victims to come forward days, months and even years when they are finally ready to go through the process.

Asked by Kelly if there were any physical bruising, scars or fingernail marks on either Cyr or his alleged victim, MacDougall said none had been found. Kelly said his 25 years of experience has shown him that if a sexual assault victim is offering resistance, there are some physical wounds

In this case, MacDougall said, he wasn't sure if the accused was in any kind of condition to have been able "to fight off a man of Ray Cyr's size and strength," or to have offered consent.

Crown prosecutor Kelly Winchester wrapped up her case by calling the last of her 14 witnesses Wednesday morning before the judge, in an unexpected move, allowed the jurors to go home early.

The defence will have an opportunity to present its case when the proceedings resume at 9:30 a.m. today at the Provincial Building on Charlotte Street. McLellan advised jurors to come back today prepared to put in "a long, hard day," including deliberations.