Nunavut court: Witness alleges teacher raped her three times

The trial of Johnny Meeko continues at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit. (FILE PHOTO)

The final complainant to testify at the trial of former Nunavut teacher Johnny Meeko told Justice Neil Sharkey that Meeko raped her three times within a period of about two years, starting when she was 15.

Meeko, who was a teaching assistant at the time, had been asked by the principal to supervise the complainant as she finished her homework after class, the witness testified.

But when she finished her school work, Meeko stood in her way in front of the door and wouldn’t let her leave, the witness said, adding nobody else was in the classroom.

“His face went from an angel to a devil,” she testified Aug. 20 at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.

Meeko then forced her into the furnace room of her classroom — which was in a portable — where large gym mats were stacked, the witness said.

“He took [a mat] down, lay me down, took my pants off and entered me. After that I don’t remember what happened. I’m still there in the school now,” she said, sobbing and burying her face in tissues.

“How long did it last?” prosecutor Amy Porteous asked the witness.

“Forever, I’m still there,” the complainant answered.

“Did you say anything while it was happening?” Porteous asked.

“What do you say to a devil’s face?” she replied.

Meeko, 60, faces 32 charges — including two counts of rape — stemming from an investigation launched by police in July 2012 after police received numerous statements alleging sex crimes committed by Meeko.

The allegations, involving nine separate complainants whose identities are protected by a court order, span from 1972 to 2007, while Meeko taught at Nuiyak Elementary School in Sanikiluaq.

Much of what the final witness testified was similar to what many of the other complainants testified over the first three days of the trial.

For example, like other complainants, she said Meeko would regularly grope female classmates over top of their clothes, tell the girls the groping would help their breasts grow bigger and ask inappropriate questions, like if they had grown any pubic hair yet.

But the final complainant’s testimony also differed significantly in some ways from previous testimony.

Before the last complainant, the most serious allegation against Meeko came from a witness on Aug. 19, who said Meeko forced his fingers into her vagina.

The final complainant said Meeko raped her three times in the same furnace room over two school years, forcing her to drop out of school.

The same witness also testified that she had non-consensual sex with Meeko twice as an adult.

And that witness said, as her teacher, Meeko would make the classroom “pitch black,” and then watch a movie with a different girl sitting on his lap each time.

“I wanted to find out what he does,” with little girls on his lap, the witness told Sharkey.

“So I sat on his lap. He’d put his hands on your crotch, first outside [your pants], and then work his way inside,” while rocking slowly back and forth in his chair, she said.

That lasted the entire movie and ended when Meeko ejaculated on her back — which the witness said she knew because of a wetness on her back.

During his cross-examination of the witness, defence lawyer James Morton asked the witness why she filed a statement with the police alleging sexual abuse at the hands of another school employee in the same furnace room five years before alleging similar abuse suffered at the hands of Meeko.

“Why did you hesitate to go to the police about Johnny?” Morton asked.

“I told you, because Johnny was an important man in town, he was God’s right-hand man,” the witness answered, explaining how Meeko was the church warden at the time.

“Because you felt he was a prominent man in the community…,” Morton started.

“I’m nothing,” the witness interjected.

“…you couldn’t go to the police, because the police wouldn’t believe you?” Morton finished.

“Yea,” she answered.

Morton pointed out to the witness the similarities in the police statement she gave about the other school employee — whose name is also protected under court order — and the statement she made about Meeko.

Those similarities, Morton said, include allegations of rape in the furnace room, abuse as an adult and that the other employee was an important man in the community.

Earlier this year, Morton said a lawyer filed a lawsuit under the complainant’s name against both Meeko and the other school employee seeking compensation from the Government of Nunavut and from the individuals for the harm they had caused her.

The complainant gave confusing, conflicting answers to Morton Aug. 20, admitting to knowing and talking to the lawyer who filed the lawsuit, but saying she did not know a lawsuit was pending.

On re-direct, prosecutor Priscilla Ferrazzi asked the witness if the two men are confused in her mind.

“What stands out as being the difference [between the two men]?” Ferrazzi asked.

“[The other school employee] used to put his whole hand inside me,” the complainant answered.

“Did Johnny do that?” Ferrazzi asked.

“No.”

The fifth day of the trial begins at 9 a.m. Aug. 21, when the Crown said it plans on playing a five-hour audio statement Meeko made to police upon his arrest.

After that, Morton told Sharkey that Meeko will testify in his own defence.

“I anticipate getting through most of Mr. Meeko’s testimony in chief [Aug. 21],” Morton said.

After testifying, the final complainant thanked Sharkey and Crown prosecutors and then hung her head in her hands and cried in the witness box.

When a prosecutor led her out of the courtroom, she could be heard sobbing from the court gallery.