One thing became clear Friday as testimony in the trial of a former Vernon teacher and vice-principal accused of having a sexual relationship with a former student wrapped up in Vernon Supreme Court.
The ex-husband of the accused did not write the anonymous letter in June 2008 to the Vernon School District accusing Deborah Louise Ashton of having a sexual relationship with one of her former students at a Vernon elementary school between 2002 and 2004.
The alleged relationship is said to have carried on with the student up until he was in Grade 9.
Ashton is facing five charges in connection with the alleged incident in this, her second trial on the matter. The first trial resulted in a hung jury.
She has pleaded not guilty to all five counts.
Friday’s court proceedings began with Ashton’s lawyer, Terry La Liberte, announcing to judge Alison Beames that the anonymous letter writer had come forward, and thus it would not be part of his cross-examination of Ashton’s former husband, Mike Jellema, who returned to the stand Friday.
Jellema had been on the stand during the first week of the trial when La Liberte accused him of writing the anonymous letter, something Jellema adamantly denied.
“I found out there was a letter, didn’t find out until after who wrote it,” said La Liberte, during Friday’s lunch break outside the Vernon Court House. “Crown found out and told me within a day. It was disappointing. It took virtually till near the end of the case for this person to come forward.”
Crown counsel Neil Flanagan said there was no value in putting the letter writer on the stand, and La Liberte said it wouldn’t have mattered.
“I don’t think it’s relevant here,” said La Liberte. “This is about whether this young man can be believed.”
La Liberte hammered away at Jellema’s testimony that he had a conversation with Ashton’s brother, Michael, near the end of September 2003 about a visit she made to Vancouver on Labour Day weekend. Jellema said he asked Michael who Ashton had come to Vancouver with.
“He told me “a skinny… kid,’” said Jellema.
Asked during re-direct questioning by Flanagan why he called Ashton’s brother, Jellema said, “it was just a follow up to my concerns when Deb said she was going to Vancouver on her own on Labour Day. She indicated she’d gone on her own. My thought was she hadn’t.”
On the stand as one of two defence witnesses, Michael Ashton said the trip to Vancouver with her sister and the alleged victim happened well before Labour Day weekend.
“I know because my relationship with my then girlfriend was ending and that was around the end of August,” said Michael Ashton, who explained he and his then girlfriend were living in his parents’ house in Coquitlam, and that Ashton had asked him to look after the alleged victim while she went to a wedding.
“Deb came down with the alleged victim in either June or July. I remember greeting them at the door,” he said. “Deb was there for half-an-hour and left. We set the boy up in my parents’ bedroom as that was the only room upstairs with a TV and gave him some movies. We ordered a pizza and invited him to share it with us.”
Michael Ashton said the last time he checked on the boy upstairs, the boy was sleeping.
He also said he was asleep when his sister came back from the wedding, and still asleep the next morning when the pair left.
“They only stayed the one night,” said Michael Ashton, who denied to Flanagan that he ever received a phone call from Jellema asking about who came with his sister on a trip to Vancouver.
The other defence witness was Ashton’s daughter, who told the court she, her brother and her mom would go “two-to-three times a week” to the alleged victim’s home to watch movies, have dinner, hang out and for Ashton to tutor the boy for his school studies.
The daughter emphatically Crown’s assertion her mom kissed the alleged victim at his house during a night of watching two Lord of the Rings movies.
“Did you ever see your mom kiss the alleged victim?” asked La Liberte.
“No, sir,” said the daughter, now 18, who did acknowledge seeing her mom hug the boy at his home on one occasion.
Flanagan suggested in his questioning of the girl that because she was only nine, and in Grade 4 when the alleged incident occurred, she might have thought they were hugging, but really were kissing.
“No, sir,” said the daughter, who answered no three times to Flanagan’s suggestions the hug was actually a kiss.
Ashton herself was not called to the stand as she was in her first trial.
Both lawyers will give their closing submissions Tuesday at 10 a.m. to Beames in Vernon Supreme Court, and then the matter will be in the judge’s hands.
