The trial of a Sault Ste. Marie high school teacher accused of sexually assaulting a student came to an abrupt end this week.
On Wednesday, when the complainant was slated to return to the witness stand for a third day, the Crown asked Ontario Court Justice Romuald Kwolek to dismiss the charges.
"I do not believe I have a reasonable prospect of conviction in this case," prosecutor David Didiodato told the judge.
Issues of credibility and reliability have arisen and "the Crown can no longer prove these offences beyond a reasonable doubt," he said in a statement he read into the record.
The woman had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
SooToday has decided not to name the accused at this time because the charge was dismissed.
A court-ordered publication ban prohibits reporting any information that may identify the complainant.
The young man testified Monday that the accused had started chatting, messaging and having "a lot" of phone calls with him.
He told the court about three incidents, where he said the woman had asked him to meet her in the parking lot of a Great Northern Road hotel and to come to her car when he arrived.
During the encounters, she kissed him - kisses that lasted from five to 10 minutes - he said, indicating she had told him not to tell anybody.
Didiodato said the case, on one level, would have turned on the issue of credibility, given no one but the accused and complainant were present at the times the assaults are alleged to have occurred.
But it also involved forensic extraction and examination of the cell phones belonging to them.
He told Kwolek that he had asked the complainant a number of questions about various images extracted from his phone, the handling, editing and redacting of them.
During cross-examination by defence lawyer Saman Wickramasinghe on Tuesday, the young man was asked additional questions.
Given the answers the complainant provided to those questions, there were significant issues of credibility and reliability - issues stemming from facts known about images derived from the forensic examination of his cell phone, the assistant Crown attorney said.
"I want to be clear (that) I believe" that the events (the kissing) described in the complainant's testimony occurred.
"But I am duty bound to discontinue the prosecution at this point," he told Kwolek.
When reached for comment Wickramasinghe said it made sense to ask the judge to dismiss the charges, calling it the only thing a Crown in this position could reasonably do.
"Either short-circuit the trial or waste more time and public resources to prove" a complainant lied, he said in an email.
"You can't prove something that didn't happen."
The Toronto lawyer charges that the complainant lied to the court, and his untruthfulness increased when he was questioned about the messages and data the police had extracted from his cell phone.
"His responses destroyed his own story and his credibility in a way that could not survive even elementary scrutiny."
Wickramasinghe said his client has patiently waited for two and a half years for the judicial process to unfold.
The woman and her defence team were confident it would lead to this result, he said. "We are just surprised it took as long as it did."
