Man acquitted of bestiality

JOHN THOMPSON

An Iqaluit man accused of having sex with his dog and later strangling the family pet was acquitted of bestiality and animal abuse charges.

But he was found guilty of uttering death threats to his wife.

“Well, this certainly is an unusual case,” said Justice Earl Johnson, as the trial came to a close last week.

In a videotaped testimonial made at the RCMP detachment, the man’s common-law wife said that one evening between mid-July and early August she arrived home, walked into the bedroom and discovered her husband with his pants down to his knees, having sex with the family Rottweiler.

When interrupted, the man let go of the dog, which then bolted from the room.

Later that night he drove to the dump with his wife and strangled the dog with a piece of rope. His wife said that she could still hear the yelping of the dog as it died, which took some 10 or 15 minutes.

After a later fight with her husband she provided that information to the RCMP in a videotaped statement. Police said the woman, frightened her husband would hurt her, refused to leave the detachment until they arrested him.

But she told a very different story when she gave evidence in court last week, contradicting many parts of her police statement.

She told the court that the opened bedroom door obstructed a full view of her husband, and she only thought he had sex with the dog. She couldn’t remember if his pants were around his knees or pulled up, either. “My mind can’t turn back to that point,” she said.

And she said that she told her husband to kill the dog, and that the killing lasted no more than a minute. She wouldn’t answer whether she missed the dog. Above all else, she insisted she loves her husband, despite the tumultuous arguments they had.

“It’s over. It’s gone. It’s not going to come back. Everybody gets angry and forgives.”

Several times she refused to answer questions directed at her, to the point where the judge went to the unusual length of letting the Crown lawyer cross-examine his witness.

“I have my suspicions that she’s covering up,” said Justice Johnson, “but I have to give reasonable benefit of the doubt.”

With the videotaped testimony thrown into doubt, the court acquitted the man of bestiality.

Without proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to cause undue suffering to the dog during its death, the man was acquitted of the animal abuse charge.

But one point the accused didn’t contradict was the charge that he uttered death threats, and that charge stuck.

He will serve a six-month conditional sentence for that charge. He must abstain from alcohol and other intoxicating substances, and take any counseling required by his sentencing supervisor.

The accused already has a string of assault and uttering threat charges on his criminal record, dating back to 1980.

He served two four-month jail terms, in 1997 and 1998, for uttering threats, followed by a year on probation. In 2000 he was convicted of sexual assault. He was convinced of spousal assault in 2002, and in 2003 of assault causing bodily harm.