HALIFAX — The family doctor of a young woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by British sailors testified Wednesday that the complainant was shaking and upset when she examined her hours after the alleged incident.
"She told me ... that she was gang raped, and began to cry," the Halifax physician told Nova Scotia Supreme Court.
She testified she has been the woman's family doctor her whole life, but their relationship evolved after the complainant lost a parent.
The doctor said she messaged the young woman on April 9, 2015 — the day she went to 12 Wing Shearwater to watch the Royal Navy hockey team play a game — because it was a tough anniversary for the complainant.
At 3:30 a.m. the next day, the woman texted the doctor saying she needed to see her urgently, but she did not receive the message until later that morning, when she told the complainant to come into the office.
The doctor said she was "dumbstruck" when the complainant came into the examination room and told her what happened.
Darren Smalley, 38, is charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm and participating in a sexual assault involving one or more people at Shearwater's barracks.
The case once involved four accused, but charges against two other sailors were dropped, while charges against another man were stayed earlier in the trial because of illness.
The doctor said the young woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, was trembling.
They discussed reporting the incident to police, but the complainant said she just wanted to move forward and "not let them take anything more from her life."
She said she examined the woman for sexually transmitted infections, and said she observed bruises in different areas on her body.
Later that day, the complainant told her she was having second thoughts about not reporting the incident and raised concerns about HIV infection.
"She's a very tough girl," the doctor said of the complainant.
The doctor said she consulted with other doctors and phoned the complainant to tell her to go to the hospital emergency room. She met her there, and they waited a number of hours for her to see a sexual assault nurse.
Eventually, military police arrived at the hospital.
After her exam with the sexual assault nurse, they all went to a military police office, where the complainant was interviewed by investigators. She said she waited in a boardroom with the woman's friend.
She testified she didn't try to influence the complainant on whether to go to the police.
The doctor said after the sexual assault, their relationship evolved further, and she found her another family doctor.
She said she has been a mentor-of-sorts to the complainant, and they would sometimes describe each other as "faux daughter" and "faux mother."
The trial also heard Wednesday from the nurse who examined the complainant at the hospital.
Paula Nickerson, who was a sexual assault nurse at the time, said she received a call to go to the hospital around 11 p.m. on April 10, 2015.
She said the complainant was "calm" throughout the hours-long examination, which included taking swabs of her mouth, back and other areas of her body.
"There were periods of her being tearful, but (she was) mostly calm," Nickerson said.
The nurse said photos were also taken of bruising on three areas of her body, and they had difficulty capturing the bruising accurately in the photos because of the lighting in the examination room.
The British sailors were in the Halifax area participating in a naval hockey tournament.
The complainant was at the barracks on the night in question because her friend had invited her on a double date after meeting a British sailor on Tinder.
Nickerson's testimony will continue Thursday.
