KAMLOOPS, B.C. — A Lytton, B.C., man has tearfully testified that he awoke naked to find his former social worker shaving off most of his body hair.
The young man, who can't be identified because of a publication ban, said he'd reluctantly accepted a ride from Michael Hume after drinking at a friend’s house because he would have otherwise faced a long walk home.
“I gave in and said yes,” he told B.C. Supreme Court on Friday.
Hume is charged with sexual assault, forcible confinement and uttering threats stemming from an incident the Crown alleges occurred at his home on Aug. 8, 2013.
The complainant told the jury that after arriving at Hume's house, he immediately went to the washroom and became sick from drinking too much alcohol but that Hume offered him more booze.
He had a few sips but didn’t like it, he said, and went to his backpack to retrieve a beer but didn't find any.
The man told the jury he tried to steal one of Hume’s other bottles of hard liquor but got caught and was told to put it back.
He said he finished about a quarter of the drink that was offered to him and passed out.
“I woke up on the floor naked in the living room,” he said.
“He (Hume) had my left leg in the air and was shaving underneath my testicles," he said, adding he was scared and became angry and asked Hume what he was doing.
The complainant testified Hume replied, “Don’t be mad. Your girlfriend will like it anyway.”
“He pretty much shaved me everywhere,” the man testified.
Janet Webster, chief of the Lytton First Nation, testified Hume arrived in the small Fraser Valley community 10 years ago, working first as a youth and recreation counsellor and later as a native court worker who helped with restorative justice and young band members in trouble with the law.
One of those was the complainant, she said.
He told court that following the shaving, Hume threatened him with a bottle, telling him he couldn’t leave. He said he made several frantic phone calls to get a ride while Hume was elsewhere in the house.
On Thursday, jurors heard a recording of a phone message the man left, pleading for help.
When he told Hume he was going to report the episode, he said the social worker “just laughed and said, ‘No one will believe you anyway.'"
“He’s probably right,” he said.
“He buys everyone’s love with money. Everyone likes him.”
Throughout his testimony, the young man said he felt scared and disgusted by the episode.
Eventually, the complainant said, Hume drove him to his cousin’s house, throwing him $50.
“He told me not to tell anyone,” he said.
“He told me I was a good kid and didn’t want me to do anything bad.”
The complainant said he immediately told his cousin about the incident. Soon after, RCMP took him to hospital for photographs of his shaven body, and they were shown to jurors. He said he’d never shaved his own body hair.
Crown lawyer Chris Balison said Hume cleaned up the shaven hair, which police armed with a search warrant later found in his vacuum cleaner. (Kamloops This Week)
