'I just want this over': Testimony ends in tears for sex assault complainant in Snelgrove trial

A woman accusing a St. John's police officer of sexually assaulting her while drunk broke down in tears multiple times Thursday, while testifying for the third time in four years.

The complainant, who can't be named due to a law protecting people who report sexual assaults, first stepped into the witness box in 2017, at the first trial for Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Const. Doug Snelgrove.

She repeated her testimony in 2020, after the first verdict was overturned due to a judge's error.

Thatsecond proceeding ended in a mistrial, also due to a judge's error. The courts ordered a third trial, requiring witnesses to give evidence once again.

On Thursday morning, with the woman's supporters watching intently from the makeshift Supreme Court gallery at the former School for the Deaf in St. John's, Crown prosecutor Lloyd Strickland walked the complainant through the night under scrutiny, in December 2014. Her voice remained measured throughout the Crown's questioning.

The woman told the court she spent Saturday night at a friend's house in Mount Pearl, downing five Black Flycoolers and playing Heads Up on her cellphone. Around midnight, giddy and intoxicated, they left for a club downtown.

The woman says she can't remember whether, or how much, she drank at the club, but said she felt progressively more inebriated as the night went on. "I was highly intoxicated. I wasn't really sure what I was doing," she said.

At some point in the early hours of the morning, she grabbed her coat and left to hail a taxi.

According to the complainant, anofficer inside a patrol car stopped her,askingif she needed a ride home. "A police officer should be safer than a taxi driver," she recalled thinking.

The complainant went on to describe a patchy recollection of that night. She remembers getting into the car and giving the constable directions to her apartment, she said. The officer helped her through her window when she couldn't find her keys. She opened the door for him from the inside, and he entered her apartment, she said.

I figured there was no sense in reporting it.

They kissed in her living room, she testified, but she can't remember how or why.

The next thing she knew, she was naked and he was having anal sex with her on her loveseat.

The complainant told the court she did not intend to have sex that night, and cannot remember whether she gave consent before and during the act.

She did not report the alleged assault until a month later.

"I figured there was no sense in reporting it, because I would have to go to the RNC," she said, "and I was just a drunk girl and he was a police officer."

She testified that she didn't know Snelgrove's name or the details of what he looked like, but recalledhe was in uniform at the time.

Defencezeroed in on past testimony

Defence lawyer Randy Piercey cross-examined the complainant, pressing her about what she could remember that night.

At various points, he referred to the complainant's responses in a previous trial, pointing out what he attempted to frame as inconsistencies.

"It's been six years. I don't remember a whole lot," the complainant said repeatedly about details from the night, such as whether she had phoned a friend before entering her apartment, or whether she believed she could have appeared sober to an observer. Piercey claimed she offered different answers to those questions during the first trial.

"I ask you these questions because I want to show you were sober. You understand that, right?" Piercey asked.

"I just don't know what you want me to say. I don't remember right now, so I don't know what you want me to say," she said, her voice breaking.

"Do you not remember because you think it'll hurt your case?" Piercey asked.

"No, I just don't remember," she replied.

'I don't want money'

The complainant broke down in tears several times in the witness box, at one point taking a break to compose herself after Piercey asked her why she had retained a lawyer.

She explainedshe called a sexual assault lawyer to help her navigate the reporting process after police requested a third interview.

"I told her I wasn't interested in suing right now.I want the justice part of it. I just want this over before I continue on with anything else I do. This is the part I care about," she said.

Piercey asked again about her plans to pursue litigation.

"I don't want money. This is what I want. I just want justice," she said, agitated.

"This has been hard enough. I don't want to keep going."

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