A13-year-old girl told the court she was too scared to tell anyone what was going on at home after allegedly being threatened by the man accused of sexually abusing her.
The girl, who was just 10 years old at the time the alleged sexual acts were happening, eventually felt secure enough to let a school teacher in Oliver know something inappropriate was going on at home. The man, who is not being named to protect the young girl, is charged with sexual assault, sexual interference of a person under 16 and touching a young person for sexual purpose.
The girl told Judge Meg Shaw that from the outset of her mom’s boyfriend moving in she didn’t like him.
“Mom was happy, so I just accepted it,” she said in Penticton provincial court on Wednesday via closed-circuit television so she would not have to be in the same room as her alleged abuser.
She recalled an instance in 2009 when her mom was annoyed and angry at her one night and sent her to be with the man so she could get some space. She said the man would repeatedly tell her she was sexy and gorgeous. The girl said she told him to stop saying that and eventually called her mom and asked to go home.
“I thought it was a one-time thing. I thought it would stop and I wanted mom to be happy. Whenever mom wasn’t there he would say those kinds of things.”
The girl said the abuse escalated from there. She said her mom’s boyfriend would come in her room early in the morning and touch her private area. For months the girl said this carried on a few times a week until one day while she was sick at home from school and alone. The girl said the man came home in the afternoon and attempted to penetrate her.
The girl said she continued to be scared to tell anyone because of the man’s alleged threats against her family, and the man saying no one would believe her.
“Even if they do you are going to be gone, dead, not even be here,” the girl recalled the man saying to her.
Everything surfaced when the girl complained of being sick one day while at school. Her teacher asked if there was something inappropriate happening at home and the girl nodded. It was then the girl decided she better tell her mom of what was happening.
“I said something is going on and I would like to tell you about it. She said is it that (the man) is touching you? I said how did you know that? She said I just guessed,” said the girl.
She told the court she convinced her mom not to say anything to the man because of the threats. The mother let her daughter stay home the next day from school. At some point the phone rang at home and the girl said the man was on the other end asking if she told anyone because their vehicle had been pulled over by RCMP.
RCMP then came to the house and took the girl’s statements and she was later taken to Kelowna where she met her biological father and had a doctor’s examination.
The trial is expected to carry on with testimony from RCMP officers involved in the investigation.