Crown, defence present closing arguments for N.L. lawyer accused of sexual assault
CTV
The trial of a Newfoundland lawyer accused of sexual assault ended Tuesday with his defence team alleging the complainant lied under oath, while the prosecution said her memory lapses were understandable.
The trial of a Newfoundland lawyer accused of sexual assault ended Tuesday with his defence team alleging the complainant lied under oath, while the prosecution said her memory lapses were understandable.
Defence lawyer Rosellen Sullivan used her closing argument to try to undermine the complainant's credibility, saying the woman's flawed recollection of dates and details about the alleged assaults by Robert Regular made her unreliable.
But Crown prosecutor Deidre Badcock noted that Regular, charged in relation to four alleged incidents with the complainant, said he could only recall dates accurately because he had records of his meetings. Without them, he too would have been left struggling to recall specifics in court, Badcock said.
“They have to be held to the same standard," Badcock told Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Vikas Khaladkar. Sullivan shot back, saying Regular's records contradicted much of the complainant's testimony.
Regular is charged with one count of sexual interference and four counts of sexual assault, all involving the same complainant in incidents alleged to have occurred between 2001 and 2013 — including one when she was aged between 12 and 14. The incidents are alleged to have occurred in or near his law firm's office building in Conception Bay South, which is about 30 kilometres west of St. John's.
Regular pleaded not guilty to the charges, and in testimony during the trial, he denied all the allegations.
One charge involves the groping of the complainant when she was a child and alone with Regular in her mother's car. Sullivan questioned the plausibility of a well-established lawyer sexually assaulting a child he'd never met, in a car parked next to a busy restaurant parking lot in broad daylight.
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