Accused, accuser had sex in Kamotiq washroom

DAN BENOIT

An Iqaluit woman got more than she bargained for when she tried to use a washroom in the Kamotik Inn this past June 1.

Itee Akavak told the court at a sexual assault trial last Thursday in Iqaluit that she entered a washroom at the Kamotiq Inn and saw a man and woman having sexual intercourse.

The man, Jayko Kilabuk, was tried last week on charges of sexual assault and criminal harassment. Justice Beverly Browne, who is trying the case without a jury, is scheduled to issue a verdict Monday, Dec. 4.

Akavak was one of the witnesses in the day-and-a-half long trial, which centered on a dope dealer who accuses her financial backer and former boyfriend of sexual assault.

“They were standing up and it looked like they were having sex,” said Akavak, who happened to walk in on the pair.

Legal aid lawyer Pat Cashman asked Akavak if the woman was crying.

“It sounded like she was moaning and panting and they were kissing,” she said.

“Did she sound upset?”

“No. I didn’t think it was rape. They seemed to be enjoying it.”

The complainant told police the accused, Jayko Kilabuk, sexually assaulted her twice in an apartment after she met him outside the Kamotiq Inn June 1, shortly after his release from jail for physically assaulting her earlier that year.

And she told the court she hadn’t been inside the Kamotiq Inn that day.

But when Cashman asked her about being observed having sex in the washroom of the Kamotiq Inn with the man, she changed her story.

She said she had been inside the restaurant sitting with the accused. She didn’t have anything to drink or use any drugs that night, though the accused did, she said.

She went to the washroom and a couple of minutes later, he came in. “And then he wanted to have sex and I said ‘No, we’re in a public place,’“ she said.

Cashman asked the woman why it took more than five months for her to tell police she had visited the Kamotiq Inn. When she first approached police in June, she made no mention of the visit.

She said she forgot how much fun she could have without a guy in her life.

Cashman said Kilabuk was under a no-contact order with her at the time, but she didn’t call the police because she wanted to have sex with him.

But she said she did what he wanted so she could leave without getting hurt.

Then Akavak walked in.

The complainant didn’t scream for help or call the police. “If I did something, I wouldn’t even be here today,” she said.

For his part, Kilabuk testified that the complainant joined him inside the Kamotiq Inn June 1 where she drank three or four beers. They also smoked marijuana outside.

He said they had sexual intercourse in the washroom until they were discovered. They left and went to an apartment where they had intercourse twice more that day.

He said the sex was consensual.

“She was playing with herself on the bed, looking at me like one of those pictures in the Playboy magazines,” Kilabuk said.

He has a criminal record for physically assaulting the complainant several times, he said. “I feel bad that I did those things before.”

In his closing arguments, Cashman told the court he believes the complainant accused the man of sexual assault so he would return to jail and she wouldn’t have to pay him $7,000 – $4,000 of which he loaned her before going to jail, and $3,000 in profits from the drug operation she ran while he was in jail.

Justice Beverly Browne told Crown prosecutor Susan Ryan she thought the evidence of the complainant was inconsistent.

She said the complainant lied to police when she didn’t mention the alleged sexual assault in the washroom or mention it in the preliminary hearing.

The judge noted how the complainant contradicted herself several times about whether she had even been inside the Kamotiq Inn. “The contradiction is significant.”

“She did mislead the police by saying she did not go into the Kamotiq,” Ryan said, but added the complainant would have had an understandable reluctance to discuss the matter. “It was a painful, highly emotional incident for her.”

Ryan said the complainant was clear she wasn’t consenting.