N.S. judge failed to recognize evidence in cabbie’s sexual assault case: Crown
HALIFAX — A Nova Scotia judge who acquitted a taxi driver accused of sexually assaulting an intoxicated passenger failed to recognize the nature of the evidence before him and made several errors in law, a Crown attorney told the province’s highest court Wednesday.
Crown lawyer Jennifer MacLellan told the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal that provincial court Judge Gregory Lenehan said three times in his oral decision there was no evidence of a lack of consent or a lack of capacity to consent to the sexual act that took place in Bassam Al-Rawi’s cab on May 22, 2015.
However, MacLellan told the three-justice panel there was, in fact, ample circumstantial evidence to prove the complainant, who had no memory of what happened, was incapable of consenting.
“This is not a rejection of evidence … This is a failure of the trial judge to recognize the evidence before him,” MacLellan said.