Toronto Coun. Michael Thompson “pressured himself on” a girl who awoke to search out him standing over her after she fell asleep drunk, the Crown alleged Monday, because the five-day sexual assault trial of the six-term politician started in Bracebridge, Ont.
Thompson is accused of sexually assaulting two ladies at a luxurious Muskoka cottage on Canada Day weekend in 2022, a getaway the prosecution asserts he coordinated for a number of ladies as a networking occasion – however then urged them to drink heavy quantities of alcohol, smoke marijuana out of his mouth, and take off their garments.
Thompson, 64, has pleaded not responsible to the 2 costs.
Crown lawyer Mareike Newhouse outlined her case to the Bracebridge, Ont. court docket Monday, alleging that Thompson sexually massaged one of many ladies towards her will. Within the second, extra graphically-described incident, she alleges Thompson led the sufferer to a different room within the cottage and pressured her right into a intercourse act regardless of the sufferer repeatedly telling him “no.”
“He urged to everyone to check the bounciness of his mattress,” a witness instructed the court docket Monday as she described the tone of the weekend she attended in hopes of furthering her profession.
The identities of the witness and the 2 complainants are shielded by a publication ban.
Thompson was “adamant” in regards to the friends constantly consuming alcohol, the witness mentioned – a time period defence lawyer Leora Shemesh challenged in cross-examination.
“He inspired a sure stream of occasions,” the witness mentioned. “With this energy dynamic established, I used to be kind of going together with issues in his desire.”
“What he urged – I did. There’s part of me that didn’t really feel a lot of a selection. You do what is recommended and transfer ahead appeasing his needs.
Shemesh urged that the witness may have refused to drink the alcohol, simply as she refused to take away her clothes at Thompson’s suggestion.
Twice in the course of the weekend, the witness mentioned, Thompson instructed her, “Be at liberty to get bare.”
Within the first occasion, the girl responded, “I mentioned, ‘No, I’m good’… I used to be shocked and confused.”
Referring to the second time, whereas on a ship, the girl mentioned, “I didn’t adjust to that. I form of froze.”
“I used to be actually uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do.”
That witness had pushed as much as the cottage with Thompson after assembly him at a Yorkville gallery the place he provided mentorship and profession help – what she described on the stand as “false guarantees.”
The 2 complainants arrived on the cottage towards the top of the lengthy weekend. The morning after the alleged assaults, the witness mentioned the ladies “have been each form of in misery.”
One sufferer, the witness mentioned, felt “taken benefit of.”
“There was this cloud of heavy damage round what she was saying.”
The opposite, she famous, “was confused, and angered as properly.”
The witness determined it will be “safer” to drive again to Toronto with the 2 ladies, who she hadn’t identified previous to the weekend – as an alternative of with Thompson as deliberate.
Thompson, who represents Scarborough Centre, was first elected in 2003, and handily received re-election in 2022 even after the sexual assault costs have been laid.
The trial continues Thursday.