Achi news desk-
ST. JOHN’S, NL –
The trial of a Newfoundland lawyer accused of sexual assault ended Tuesday with his defense team claiming the plaintiff lied under oath, while the prosecution said her lack of memory was understandable.
Defense lawyer Rosellen Sullivan used her closing argument to try to undermine the complainant’s credibility, saying the woman’s faulty recollection of dates and details of the alleged assaults by Robert Regular made her unreliable.
But Crown prosecutor Deidre Badcock noted that Regular, who was charged in relation to four alleged incidents with the complainant, said that he could only remember dates correctly because he had minutes of his meetings. Without them, he too would have had trouble remembering specific details in court, Badcock said.
“They have to be held to the same standard,” Badcock told Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Vikas Khaladkar. Sullivan shot back, saying Regular’s records contradicted much of the plaintiff’s testimony.
Regular is accused of one case of sexual interference and four cases of sexual assault, all involving the same complainant in incidents that allegedly took place between 2001 and 2013 — including one when he was between 12 and 14 years old. It is alleged that the incidents took place in or near the office building of his law firm in South Conception Bay, which is approximately 30 kilometers west of St. John’s.
He consistently pleaded not guilty to the charges, and in evidence during the trial, denied all the allegations.
One charge relates to groping the complainant when she was a child and alone with Regular in her mother’s car. Sullivan questioned the credibility of an established lawyer sexually assaulting a child he had never met, in a car parked next to a busy restaurant parking lot in broad daylight.
“Why is that unlikely?” Bad companions. “Isn’t it unlikely that anyone would sexually assault anyone?”
The complainant has said that the last three alleged assaults occurred while she was seeking Regular’s legal services. Sullivan said the woman’s testimony that the last two assaults took only minutes and involved penetrative sex was undermined by evidence that Regular had erectile dysfunction.
Sullivan regularly testified that he suffered from heart problems as well as erectile dysfunction, Sullivan recalled. A doctor testifying for the defense said that if someone with his condition had taken Viagra hours earlier, they might be able to have sex in such a short time under “the best possible conditions,” he said.
“A busy office during the day with a disgruntled participant is not optimal,” says Sullivan.
He accused the woman of lying on the stand when questioned about being arrested at a gas station and of turning to someone she says sexually assaulted her for legal services. Lying under oath should be “fatal” to her claims, Sullivan told the judge.
Badcock said that although Regular had access to all the files and evidence that would be presented during the trial, the woman did not, and was not able to “refresh her memory” in the same way as Regular.
She said she agreed that the woman confused the sequence of events at times, and sometimes did not remember things correctly, even while on the stand. But when she was arrested at the gas station, she was drunk, Badcock noted, so it makes sense that she couldn’t accurately remember what happened.
As for why the woman went back to Regular, Badcock said the main reason was that the woman knew she wouldn’t have to pay because Regular was trading his services for sexual favors.
The woman’s identity is protected by a publication ban, as is usual in sexual assault cases. Regular had tried to have his name also withheld from publication, but a judge rejected his request for a ban in 2022.
Khaladkar said he would deliver his decision on June 27.
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on May 7, 2024
