Update: Jury begins deliberations in Bonnie McLachlan trial

Just before 4 p.m. the 12 person jury began deliberating the fate of Bonnie McLachlan.

In his instructions, Justice Martel Popescul asked the jury to determine if McLachlan is guilty or innocent of touching a then 15-year-old teenage boy for sexual purposes.

Earlier, the Crown and defence counsels made their closing arguments.

McLachlan faces a sexual exploitation charge stemming from a series of alleged incidents that occurred during the 1993-1994 school year. The male, now in his 30s, who cannot be named, alleges that the teacher initiated a relationship with him, which became sexual. He came forward in 2010 with the allegations and McLachlan was officially charged.

On Thursday, Crown prosecutor Jennifer Claxton-Viczko, made her closing arguments to the mostly female jury. She asked them to remove whatever biases they may have in their minds about teenaged boys.

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The alleged victim, she said, “is entitled to the same protection under the law” as a 15-year-old girl would be.

The alleged victim, now an adult, gave testimony that the relationship became sexual after the two worked out at the California Fitness gym in Prince Albert. McLachlan allegedly asked the teen to leave the gym with her, and drove to Little Red park. While engaged in a conversation, she allegedly asked to kiss him, then crawled on top of the youth and they began to have sex, Claxton-Viczko told the jury.

She said the man could not be mistaken about that, and suggested to the jurors that he is telling the truth about the incident.

Claxton-Viczko stated the young man at the time was agreeable with the situation, but it “doesn’t matter” that he did in this case.

“She’s a 30-something year old, twice his age, and his teacher.”

The Crown prosecutor then handed the jurors a photograph of the alleged victim as he looked in 1993-1994, and asked them to take it with them into the jury room.

“You look at that photo when you’re in the jury room,” she said, while holding the photo up.
Claxton-Viczko then recounted the testimony of McLachlan’s teaching assistant, Wanda Kent, who described an alleged incident that she witnessed between the accuser and the defendant.

Kent said that on one occasion, McLachlan slammed the teen into a locker and then proceeded to slide up against him. Kent had also testified that McLachlan told her that she was having sex with her student.

The prosecutor told the jurors that what’s interesting about McLachlan’s evidence is that she denies everything.

McLachlan’s evidence is “not believable,” Claxton-Viczko said, as she said “no to every little thing.”

She told the jurors the witnesses who testified with evidence supporting the alleged victim’s accusations are unconnected people by in large. There’s “no reason why they would go in that box and pick up that Bible and lie,” Claxton-Viczko said.

Fabrication is what the defence counsel stated in his closing arguments moments prior, is what the alleged victim did.

Of one of the alleged encounters, in which the complainant said he and McLachlan engaged in oral sex in her car, defence lawyer Peter Abrametz said, “It sounds like something made up by a 15-year-old to me.”

Abrametz told the jurors that it’s suspicious that witnesses would purport to remember things in detail that happened 20 years earlier.

“It’s highly suspect that they would purport to have details of these things,” Abrametz said.

He said the complainant’s version of events were full of contradictions, and were not consistent with previous stories.

Abrametz said McLachlan didn’t groom the alleged victim – he said she didn’t seek him out for victimization. “We don’t have evidence of that,” he said.

He said the rumours that did go around the school that year about an alleged relationship between McLachlan and the student were spread by the complainant himself.

“It sounds like something a 15-year-old is making up.”

Abrametz also attacked allegations that McLachlan had the then 15-year-old boy babysit her toddler, who was legally blind and suffered from Celiac disease. He questioned whether it would make sense to have a 15-year-old boy babysitting a baby with health problems.

One of the alleged sexual encounters is said to have occurred while the teen said he babysat McLachlan’s son.

Before the defence and Crown made their closing arguments, the defence presented its final witness.
Paula Thiesen was the teacher who took over McLachlan’s class near the end of the 1993-1994 school year.

McLachlan was on leave – the defence asserts it was a stress leave, the Crown said she was suspended – after she accompanied the school’s band/choir students to Banff, Alta. During the May 1994 school trip, McLachlan allegedly was found by another student in a hot tub with the complainant, sitting in his lap and kissing him. Other students testify they witnessed McLachlan and the complainant touching hands and each other’s legs during the car ride to Banff.

Administration at the school board received anonymous complaints and McLachlan was removed from the classroom. When Thiesen took over, she said the alleged victim was one of the two students she clearly remembered.

She described the teen as being well-liked and popular, and said he stood out from the rest of the group.

“I remember him being a charming young man,” she said.

Thiesen was the final witness to appear at the end of the four-day trial. The case will soon be in the hands of the jury, with presiding judge  Popescul delivering his charge to the jury at 2 p.m.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames