Military appeal court orders retrial in sexual assault case
OTTAWA — A retrial has been ordered in the case of a Canadian Forces member who was acquitted last year of sexually assaulting a female colleague while the two were deployed on a training exercise in Jamaica in 2015.
A military judge found Cpl. Simon Cadieux not guilty of sexual assault and drunkenness following a court martial in May 2017, but the Court Martial Appeal Court says the judge erred in his ruling.
Cadieux and his special forces unit were in Jamaica in November 2015 when they held a barbecue that included drinking and partying to mark the end of a training exercise.
According to testimony delivered during the initial court martial, a drunk Cadieux went into a female-only tent after the party where he woke up another service member and the two kissed in the dark before she realized he wasn’t who she thought.