Nunavut man found not guilty of historical sexual assault charge

Content warning: this story includes details of sexual assault

Norman Ford has been found not guilty of the historical sexual assault of a young girl.

The 66-year-old had faced a single charge of sexual assault stemming from an incident alleged to have happened more than 30 years ago in his hometown of Rankin Inlet.

Nunavut Court Justice Bonnie Tulloch heard Ford’s trial in Rankin Inlet on Thursday, which Nunatsiaq News followed by teleconference.

The complainant, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, had alleged Ford assaulted her while his family was tasked with babysitting her as a five-year-old.

The complainant testified that she was using the washroom at Ford’s home, and when he came in to bring her toilet paper, she alleged that Ford’s pants were open and he pressed his penis against her body.

She testified that later that same day, Ford took her on his lap on the couch in the living room, and stroked and humped her backside.

The complainant, now in her late 30s, said she had forgotten about the incident until she heard Nunavut singer-songwriter Susan Aglukark testify at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The inquiry hosted hearings in Rankin Inlet in February 2018, at which Aglukark shared details about her own childhood sexual abuse at the hands of Ford.

Aglukark told the inquiry that you could “fill the room” with Ford’s victims.

The complainant went to police a few months later, in June 2018.

Crown prosecutor Tracy Buffalo submitted that the case was one of recovered or reclaimed memory, a theory that memories can be recovered later in life, triggered by certain factors.

The concept was identified in the case of Eric Dejaeger, a Belgian priest who was found guilty in 2014 on a series of assault charges related to the historical sexual abuse of Nunavut children.

During the one-day trial, both the complainant and her mother testified about the day of the alleged assault, which they recall would have happened in the winter of either 1987 or 1988.

Defence counsel Matthew Eaton-Kent noted differences in the mother’s and complainant’s detailed timelines of that day. Eaton-Kent also found discrepancies in the complainant’s recollection of when and how she viewed Aglukark’s testimony to the national inquiry hearing.

Justice Tulloch acknowledged the ability to recover memory, but she said it must be backed up by strong evidence, which she said was lacking in this case.

Tulloch noted that the complainant’s description of her interactions with Ford did not prove the touching was sexual in nature.

“There are a number of inconsistencies in [her] testimony,” Tulloch told the court, though she noted that “she clearly was trying to tell the truth.”

“In cases like this, there are clearly going to be lots of inconsistencies,” Tulloch said. “When we’re talking about something that happened to a very young complainant … a long time ago, we have to be very careful.

“When you put all the inconsistencies together, it would be dangerous to convict in respect to this evidence.”

The proceedings in Ford’s case saw long delays between the time he was first charged in June 2018 to his trial date this week, due to Ford being in custody in southern Canada for a time, the medical circumstances of the complainant and then COVID-19-related administrative delays.

Ford’s defence initially filed an application to stay proceedings in this case, arguing that his right to be tried within a reasonable time had been infringed.

That application was dismissed in February.

Ford, who attended the trial in person, has a convicted sexual assault history that goes back to the early 1990s.

More than a decade after the assault on Aglukark, Ford was charged with molesting other victims, and Aglukark gave testimony to help convict him. He received an 18-month sentence, of which he served six months.

In 2018, Ford pleaded guilty to sexual interference involving a minor, for incidents that occurred between 2004 and 2006, and received a 15-month prison sentence.