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Friday, March 9, 2012
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Nicholas Duong, a Grade 12 student at Seaton Secondary School, looks at his design before he goes onto the next step of the silk screening process during a screen printing workshop at the Vernon Public Art Gallery. Artist Shauna Oddleifson, of Kelowna, paints over her image so that it can be transferred as she runs the workshop.
Emotions run high during court case ROGER KNOX
the alleged encounters. “In the first trial, you agreed that you had Emotions were evident between lawyers, 231 sexual incidents with Miss Ashton, which the judge and the alleged victim in Vernon was having sex every two or three days, most Supreme Court as the trial of a former of the time in her Suburban (vehicle), then Vernon teacher charged with having a sexual you said that 20-to-30 per cent of those 231 relationship with a former student contin- times was sexual intercourse, so that’s 40-toues. 60 times you say you had sexual Terry La Liberte, lawyer for the intercourse with Miss Ashton,” accused, Deborah Louise Ashton, said La Liberte. spent the better part of two days “Yes,” answered the man. in court hammering away at the La Liberte spent a majority testimony of the alleged victim, of Thursday morning asking the now 22, in his cross examinaalleged victim to describe having tion. sexual intercourse with Ashton Ashton, 47, has pleaded not in her Suburban, after La Liberte guilty to five counts in this her pointed out to the man that, second trial of allegedly havgiven his testimony of having sex ing a sexual relationship with a “five times with her at his house, Deborah Ashton former student between 2002 maybe six times at the school, and 2005, when the student was her parents’ house and the many in Gr. 7, and continued on into secondary other times you haven’t told us about,” the school. vast majority of encounters would have had The first trial ended in a hung jury. to have taken place in the Suburban. Ashton is being tried before Supreme Court “Okay, I guess so,” said the alleged victim. judge Alison Beames alone. “I do remember sexual activities, I don’t La Liberte took issue over the amount remember the sex.” of times the man claims to have had sex or La Liberte asked the man to describe the sexual activities with Ashton, the fact that sex, especially when there was a console in some of his answers changed from the origi- the middle of the front seat, something the nal trial in February 2011, and the fact the man said he didn’t remember being there. victim has problems remembering many of “We could have been sitting in the back Morning Star Staff
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seat, she could have been on top of me, if the seat was laid down in the back we could have used it as a bed,” said the man. “Did you do any of them?” asked La Liberte. “I don’t remember. We could have done that but I don’t remember having sexual intercourse at all,” said the man. When he kept asking about the number of times the pair allegedly had sex in the Suburban, La Liberte noticed the victim slumped back in the witness dock, head on hand. “Am I boring you?” asked La Liberte. “You’ve asked me that question hundreds of times and I’ve answered it hundreds of times,” said the victim, his voice rising in frustration. “We could have had sex in her vehicle. I don’t remember a particular time.” Crown counsel Neil Flanagan objected to La Liberte’s questions, calling them “deliberately confusing” as he rose in anger. “We’ve been over and over this,” said Flanagan. Beames also took issue with La Liberte’s questioning style at one point during the cross-examination, which was still ongoing Thursday at The Morning Star’s deadline. Defence pointed out some discrepancies in the man’s answers to questions during a police interview, the first trial’s preliminary hearing, the first trial and answers to ques-
tions during the ongoing court proceedings. “What I remembered then is what I was saying and what I remember now is what I am saying,” stated the man. La Liberte also refuted all of the alleged victim’s testimony about a trip to Vancouver and an overnight stay in Ashton’s parents’ house where sex allegedly occurred and the fact the victim couldn’t remember Ashton’s Suburban having a sunroof. La Liberte disputed the man’s recollection of the exact location where Ashton allegedly said she was falling for him; a school trip to a camp in the Shuswap where the man said Ashton came into a cabin full of boys and got under a sleeping bag with him and performed a sexual act. And La Liberte also went after the victim’s inability to remember a prominent tattoo below Ashton’s navel. The man said Ashton “always had a top on and never saw her naked below the waist.” “I suggest to you, sir, that none of this stuff happened because you’ve made it all up,” said La Liberte. “It did happen,” answered the man. Ashton’s ex-husband, Mike Jellema, was slated to take the stand either Thursday afternoon or this morning. The trial will take Monday off before resuming Tuesday. It is slated to wrap up March 16.
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