It’s still a wait for a former Vernon teacher and administrator facing two counts of perjury.
It will be at least August before Supreme Court Justice Geoff Barrow renders his decision on Deborah Louise Ashton, who is charged in connection with statements she made during her first trial in February 2011 on five counts of allegedly having a sexual relationship with a former student.
Court reconvened Friday in Vernon following a three-month break for closing submissions from Crown lawyer Don Mann and Ashton’s lawyer, G. Jack Harris.
Closing submissions could not be heard in March due to scheduling conflicts between Barrow, Mann and Harris.
After both sides took the majority of court time Friday to give their arguments, Barrow said he would not have time to make a same-day decision.
“I recognize the need to get this over with,” said Barrow, who announced that all parties will get together July 8 to fix a date for a decision.
Barrow is working a trial through the month of July and not available before August.
Ashton’s first trial resulted in a hung jury. She was then acquitted on all five counts in a second trial in March 2012 in front of a Supreme Court Justice alone.
She was charged with perjury before the second trial with Crown alleging that Ashton made false and misleading statements in regards to a bracelet she allegedly bought her accuser, who cannot be named because of a publication ban, and the bracelet contained the inscription ‘I go with you.’
Ashton said she could not remember purchasing or giving the bracelet to her accuser.
Asked during her trial if she had purchased the bracelet for the complainant, Ashton replied, “No sir, I can’t tell you that.”
The other misleading statement Crown claims Ashton made was that she “always picked up and dropped off her son” at daycare. Ashton admitted during her second trial that her answer on that matter was incorrect, and Harris reiterated Friday that Ashton had overstated her answer.
To prove perjury, Crown must convince Barrow beyond a reasonable doubt that Ashton’s answers were false; that she knew they were false when she gave them and that she deliberately misled the court when giving the answers.
“It’s my submission the accused went about to systematically dispute or deny the allegations at the time,” said Mann.
In regards to the bracelet, Mann said to Barrow “when you look at the purpose of her defence, the only inference you can come to is that she intended to mislead the court that she either purchased or gave the bracelet to the complainant.”
The same argument, Mann said, could be used for count two; that she intended to mislead the court about always picking up her son from daycare.
Mann said both of Ashton’s answers were “not plausible.”
Harris said Crown failed to prove its case on either count beyond a reasonable doubt.
On the matter of the bracelet, Harris pointed out that whether or not Ashton “purchased” the bracelet was a non-issue at trial as Mann never questioned the wording.
Harris called the alleged gift to Ashton’s accuser “insignifcant.”
“The bracelet was meaningless to him,” said Harris. “Crown says the bracelet is significant but he didn’t want the bracelet. He said twice he never wore it.”
Harris also took aim at one of the lead investigators of the case, Vernon RCMP Cpl. Sue Kolibaba, who testified she could not remember showing a photograph of Ashton to a Vernon jeweler.
Kolibaba, he said, was given the benefit of the doubt in making a mistake, but not his client when it came to her answer regarding the dropping off and picking up of her son at at Vernon daycare.
