A judge in Peterborough, Ont., is mulling the fate of a local police officer charged with sexual assault after his trial heard graphic details from a woman who claims he raped her in his house.
Const. Christopher Robertson pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting the woman during an alleged incident that took place in January 2015, while he was off-duty. The charge was laid after an investigation by Ontario's police watchdog.
The woman at the centre of the case, who cannot be identified, testified at the trial.
"He needs to be held accountable," she told the court. "He broke the law, (profanity) raped me."
But Robertson, 55, told the court he only had consensual sex with the woman, who was 40 at the time.
"I didn't sexually assault anybody," he testified.
Much of the trial focused on what Robertson and the woman remembered.
The woman testified that she met him at a local nightclub during a girls' night out on a Friday night. She recalled having eight to nine rye-and-Cokes over the course of that night, and said she couldn't remember much about what happened.
"There's a memory and then there's a black wall, and then there's a memory and then there's a black wall," she said. "Even when there are memories, it's like tunnel vision."
The pair danced closely, kissing at times, court heard. Robertson said the woman initiated their interaction and described their dancing as "intimate."
Robertson testified he had no intention of going home with her, but the pair ended up getting into the same cab, which took them to his home.
The woman said she remembered sitting in Robertson's living room before he picked her up and walked into his bedroom.
"Then it just goes black," the woman said, explaining that the next memory she had was of being pinned on her stomach.
"I couldn't move and there was a lot of pain," she said. "There was pain on my lower back from him holding me there, my legs were pinned tight together and I couldn't move. I couldn't get out of the position."
The woman said she repeatedly told Robertson to stop, but he kept having rough sex with her.
"I was fighting and he kept saying my name over and over...," she said.
The woman said she then felt "excruciating pain" on one shoulder, after which Robertson allegedly said "that's so people know you are mine."
The trial heard Robertson had not used a condom, and told the woman "don't worry, I'm fixed."
He drove her home early Saturday morning and demanded a goodbye kiss before she got out of his truck, the woman said.
At some point, the fact that Robertson was a police officer had come up, court heard.
Later on Saturday, the trial heard that the woman was upset, fought with her on-again off-again boyfriend, and had sex with him.
Robertson's defence lawyer suggested the woman's relationship with her boyfriend, who was married at the time, motivated her to fabricate allegations against Robertson.
"You had a one night stand that created a big problem in your relationship," said Joseph Markson. "You got caught and you had no way out and no way to get him back until you fabricated a sexual assault and fabricated memory loss."
Two days later, the woman went to a hospital to get checked for STDs, but refused a forensic examination because, at the time, she didn't want to pursue charges, court heard.
"I remember saying 'no, he's a cop. I'm not going to take on the police force,'" she recalled. "I said 'Who would you even report it to? What if I walk in and he's sitting right there?'"
A nurse who examined her found abrasions on the woman's knees, bruises on her upper back, a red scratch below her neck, tenderness over her kidney areas and a small red abrasion deep inside her vagina.
The woman said she decided to file a complaint weeks later because what happened was eating away at her.
Robertson, however, gave a vastly different version of events to the court.
He claimed the woman was the one who decided to come into his home that night and then started performing oral sex on him in his living room. He said the woman then jumped into his arms, at which point he carried her into the bedroom.
Robertson said the woman did not ask him to stop once they started having sex, and he testified he did not pin her down.
After sex, they engaged in pillow talk and Robertson then drove her home, he said. Before the woman got out of his truck, Robertson said she started kissing him and performed oral sex again, after which they had intercourse a second time.
"She starts complaining to me about being uncomfortable and it being hard on her knees," he said. "Her knees were resting on my seatbelt anchors."
Crown prosecutor Peter Scrutton challenged Robertson's account.
"I'm going to suggest that things got rough at the house between you and her," Scrutton said noting that as a police officer, Robertson would have been familiar with the laws around consent, and that a woman can withdraw consent at any time.
"You're lying about this to make it sound like there was nothing untoward about the sex that happened earlier."
A decision in Robertson's case is expected May 30.
